Former Savannah school administrator alleges in lawsuit district retaliated for whistleblowing
Sheila Garcia-Wilder, the former chief of schools for the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System, has filed a civil lawsuit against the district that claims she was terminated in retaliation for raising concerns that Black male students and special needs students were disproportionately disciplined with suspension and expulsion.
In her first month as chief of schools in July 2019, Garcia-Wilder said she started receiving “expulsion packets” from SCCPSS principals. Inside the expulsion packets were discipline recommendations, including short- and long-term suspensions, for students who had gotten in trouble for a wide array of infractions. In her position, Garcia-Wilder was responsible for approving or disapproving these discipline recommendations.
Garcia-Wilder discovered after reviewing the expulsion packets that more than 50% had not been processed according to SCCPSS policies and procedures. In many cases, parents had not been made aware within the required 10-day timeframe that their child was scheduled for a discipline hearing. Some parents were not made aware that a disciplinary hearing was even available. Some students who were expelled or suspended were falsely marked as present in the classroom. A high number of suspensions and expulsions were not being recorded and reported — and, even if they were, the district wasn’t sending the report to the Georgia Department of Education (GDOE).
“It started becoming a pattern,” Garcia-Wilder told the Savannah Morning News. “This was a big issue. That's where things went awry for me.”
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Students' due process not followed
Garcia-Wilder first raised the issue on Oct. 6, 2019, when she emailed then-SCCPSS Executive Director of K-12 School Transformation Vallerie Cave that she had reviewed and returned a number of expulsion packets for Mercer Middle School.
“In review of the packet, I would like to meet with you and Dr. [Garrett] Brundage [chief of executive services] to discuss a behavior plan of action to support the administration and to ensure students’ due process is being followed.”
In an email that same day, Cave wrote to Garcia-Wilder that she was concerned about “the dynamics of this situation as it pertains to the culture of Mercer Middle School,” calling the discipline recommendations a “safety concern.”
The two agreed to meet to discuss Cave's plan to ensure principals were implementing the referral packet process with consistency to ensure due process, that the packets would be submitted to Garcia-Wilder before the 10-day window approached and/or expired, and that expectations would be clearly communicated to principals.
Garcia-Wilder said that she then wanted to review a clear school discipline plan with the administration and to identify needed supports for its implementation.
At the same time she was receiving packets and identifying discipline patterns, Garcia-Wilder was also conducting additional research into the root causes of the district's drop in the state's College and Career Readiness Performance Index (CCRPI). There was a nearly 7% decrease in elementary school scores between 2017-2018 and 2018-2019, and Savannah-Chatham County elementary age students trailed the statewide average by almost 12%.
Garcia-Wilder said she had planned to examine middle and high schools to look for similar trends and patterns, but she never got the chance.
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Demotions, reduced pay follow superintendent conversation
Garcia-Wilder sent a copy of the root-cause analysis to SCCPSS Superintendent Dr. Ann Levett along with the disciplinary findings that the school system was not following legal standards ahead of an October 2019 meeting.
According to the lawsuit, “At this time, Superintendent Levett threatened Dr. Garcia-Wilder, indicating that she could remove Dr. Garcia-Wilder from her position and place her in a position where she would “feel comfortable.”'
The following month, according to the lawsuit, Levett acknowledged to Garcia-Wilder that she also disapproved some recommended suspensions and expulsions before she became superintendent, but she did not put those recommendations in writing.
“But for me, it needed to be in writing because it needed to stop. I was trying to change a practice that was becoming more problematic,” Garcia-Wilder said.
In mid-January 2020, Garcia-Wilder was copied on an email from Kim Hancock, then-associate superintendent of learning support services. That email informed Garcia-Wilder that a fourth-grade student who had been suspended for 10 days in November 2019 has not returned to the classroom.
Garcia-Wilder knew how missing school could affect young children. In an academic article published in 2011, researchers found when students are suspended or expelled, the likelihood that they will repeat a grade, not graduate, and/or become involved in the juvenile justice system increases significantly.
“I kept trying to get someone to understand the impact, and I kept hitting a brick wall because I couldn’t get anyone to see that had something happened to this child, then he would have been in trouble, but nobody even looked for this child,” Garcia-Wilder said. “And then, to add insult to injury, this child was out of school and we were reporting that he was in school.
“It was eating up at me. I kept thinking: What if this happens again?”
In the lawsuit, Garcia-Wilder alleges that when she informed Levett about the situation, she was referred to Chief of Human Resources Ramon Ray, who convened Cave and Brundage to discuss the matter.
"[Garcia-Wilder] was gung-ho," recalled Brundage, who was demoted before retiring from the district in 2021. "Garcia-Wilder was steadfast in that we needed follow state law, and monitor the incidents, in terms of suspension and expulsion not being in the system."
Then, according to the lawsuit, Ray “made it clear to Dr. Garcia-Wilder that she should proceed no further in ‘opening a can of worms.’"
"She was deflated," Brundage said.
Four months later in May 2020, Ray and Levett met with Garcia-Wilder to inform her that her position was being eliminated due to restructuring. Ray offered Garcia-Wilder a senior grant writer position. The following month, Ray told her that her salary was being reduced from $162,923 to $120,000.
“According to what Dr. Levett was telling us, we knew that COVID was going to affect the budget,” said Garcia-Wilder. “But it wasn’t until I received a big demotion and decrease in pay, that I realized they were retaliating against me.”
Garcia-Wilder wondered why she had not been offered a principal position. “I'm more than qualified in those areas of administration. Instead, [Levett] took me completely out of the department. That's when I realized this is me reporting about the discipline [recommendations]. I realized that this was personal.”
But Garcia-Wilder was only one year away from retirement after 29 years as an educator. She wanted to retire in the district where she started her career, so she accepted the demotion.
“I was home,” said Garcia-Wilder. "I'm best at helping students in this community."
In May 2021, Garcia-Wilder was demoted again, this time to grant writer. Her salary was reduced again by another $35,000.
In a letter dated April 13, 2021, Garcia-Wilder wrote to Levett: “This is the second demotion that I have received from the school system since I began reporting discipline and attendance data that showed the school system’s unbalanced disciplinary actions against our students who are disabled or racial minorities, denials of due process to students regarding their suspension or expulsion and failures to make a record of their absences.”
She requested a meeting to discuss the matter, but that meeting never occurred. Garcia-Wilder filed the lawsuit against the district one month later, then in July she officially resigned from SCCPSS.
“[Levett] hired me to do this job, so why didn’t she just let me do it?” Garcia-Wilder said. “Because it would have exposed her. It would have exposed her because she’s been in charge for the last 13 years and she would have allowed this to happen. She knew about it and didn’t do anything about it.”
Savannah-Chatham County Public School spokesperson Sheila Blanco responded to the allegations via email:
"As a normal function of the school district, administrative meetings were certainly held over the course of her employment. Dr. Garcia-Wilder was informed of the departmental restructuring plan in one of those meetings and was provided an opportunity to accept another position with the District. Salary levels are consistent with the employee’s position and the associated duties and responsibilities. The District is prepared to respond to the allegations and refutes many of the factual contentions in Dr. Garcia-Wilder’s complaint. As this is a personnel matter with pending litigation there is no further comment."
Garcia-Wilder’s attorney Wesley Woolf said the lawsuit is not only an effort to restore Garcia-Wilder's professional reputation, but also to restore the integrity of the education system.
"Some of those that are not getting the education they were promised by the community are experiencing a jeopardy to their futures careers and even their lives,” said Woolf.
Said Garcia-Wilder, “Hopefully, more parents will become more aware about their child's rights, so that when they're in this situation, schools can't just throw them to alternative schools or suspend them from school without due process.”
Drew Favakeh is the public safety and courts reporter for Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at AFavakeh@savannahnow.com.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Former Savannah schools chief alleges retaliation in lawsuit against district
