Savannah-Chatham Public Schools alleges former chief of schools secretly recorded colleagues
Attorneys for the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System (SCCPSS) have filed a motion alleging that Dr. Shelia Garcia-Wilder secretly recorded her co-workers without their knowledge or consent, knowing she was going to file a lawsuit.
Garcia-Wilder, the former chief of schools for SCCPSS, filed the civil lawsuit in May 2021 against the district where she claims she was terminated in retaliation for raising concerns that Black male students and special needs students were disproportionately disciplined with suspension and expulsion.
The motion to compel discovery was filed in Chatham County Superior Court by Andrew Dekle, an attorney with Bouhan Falligant, on Nov. 20.
Dekle is requesting the court rule that the recordings are not protected work product and be produced in discovery. If the court finds that the recordings are protected work product, Dekle is arguing, Garcia-Wilder is required to produce them anyway because finding equivalent materials would require "undue hardship."
The motion was filed 10 days before the SCCPSS school board’s Audit Committee found employee discipline procedures to be “ineffective to ensure consistency of practices across the District.”
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Dekle alleges that Garcia-Wilder recorded Chief Human Resources Officer Ramon Ray, Chief Data and Information Officer David Feliciano, and educational consultant David Lerch nine times between October 2020 and June 2021. At no time, Dekle asserts, did Garcia-Wilder inform her colleagues or obtain consent for these recordings.
“Dr. Garcia-Wilder may have been contemplating a lawsuit at the time she made these recordings," Deckle wrote. "Her secret intent should not transform a conversation that occurred in the ordinary course of business into work product.”
Dekle also argued that “even if the recordings at issue were work product, the District can show undue hardship that would warrant their disclosure.” It would be "unreasonable" for Ray, Feliciano or Lerch to remember verbatim conversations among the parties. Dekle added that “these recordings may include a verbatim record of admissions by Plaintiff that harm her own case.”
If the court does find that the recordings are work-product, Dekle wrote, O.C.G.A. § 9-11-26(b)(3) requires their production before depositions of the secretly recorded employees.
Previously scheduled depositions of Ray and Feliciano have been delayed until the issue is resolved.
In a phone call, Garcia-Wilder's attorney, Wesley Woolf of Woolf Law Firm, confirmed that Garcia-Wilder recorded her colleagues without their knowledge or consent but noted that Georgia is a one-party consent state. Woolf said he will file a response to Bouhan Falligant's motion by Dec. 20.
"They didn't have knowledge, and this is perfectly lawful," Woolf said in the phone call. "I advise my clients to do this from time to time."
Bouhan Falligant did not return a phone call by publication time.
No hearings are scheduled yet in the case.
Drew Favakeh is the public safety and courts reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at AFavakeh@savannahnow.com.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Attorney alleges former SCCPSS chief of schools secretly recorded colleagues
