nothin COO Files Complaint vs. “Worst Boss” | New Haven Independent

COO Files Complaint vs. Worst Boss”

Christopher Peak Photos

Pinto (at left). Birks: “Change is hard” but “necessary.”

Superintendent Carol Birks repeatedly mocked, insulted and demeaned her top staff, according to a hostile work environment” complaint her chief operating officer has filed.

In a four-page letter backed up by 19 pages of emails and notes, Chief Operating Officer Michael Pinto told human resources that Birks has created the hostile work environment” at the district’s Meadow Street headquarters.

Birks yelled at him for not relocating an existing summer program with less than one day’s notice in a decision that required transporting youngsters without safety belts, he alleged.

Birks reversed a recommendation about where to move Riverside Opportunity High School during a presentation to a school board committee, then ridiculed him for it, he stated.

And, he wrote, Birks said a student walkout at Career High School to protest the involuntary transfer of their teachers might devolve into a riot” without police backup.

Birks, meanwhile, wrote in a memo that Pinto failed to work in a kids first” manner and threatened to take disciplinary action against him.

In his complaint, obtained by the Independent, Pinto reported that the repeated insults have taken a personal toll on him. He said that, three months into the job (after arriving from the city’s transportation department), Deputy Superintendent Ivelise Velazquez asked him how he’d been adjusting. He said in some ways, he felt very much accepted by members of the executive team,” but in other ways, he’d never been treated so poorly in my entire professional career.”

There’s a lot of that,” he said Velazquez replied. (Velazquez told the Independent she doesn’t remember that exchange.)

Birks, facing criticism at a recent school board meeting.

This school year, top administrators have been leaving in droves.

In the past few months, the district has lost Deputy Superintendent Velazquez, Assistant Superintendent for Instructional Leadership Gil Traverso, Director of English Language Learners Abie Benitez, Director of College & Career Pathways Dolores Garcia-Blocker, Special Education Supervisor Patrica Moore, Labor Relations Officer Vallerie Hudson-Brown and High School Arts Director Timothy Jones.

Pinto himself replaced Will Clark, who left the position with a $103,000 separation agreement not to sue or make disparaging comments about the Board of Ed (except to law enforcement or other government investigators).

Another senior-level employee — Gemma Joseph-Lumpkin, the Youth, Family & Community Engagement chief (who serves on the board of directors for the Online Journalism Project, the nonprofit entity that owns the Independent) — has filed a federal lawsuit against Birks, claiming that the superintendent retaliated against her for taking maternity leave after adopting a newborn.

On Monday afternoon, Superintendent Birks said that she had not been notified of Pinto’s complaint against her, but she defended her behavior. She said she had always acted appropriately, pushing the staff around her to do the best for kids.

I treat everyone with courtesy and respect and it might be that I’m holding people accountable to ensure that they get their job done for the kids and families for New Haven, that they’re getting the best service that they should have,” Birks said in a statement. Change is hard for people, but change is necessary to continue to take New Haven Public Schools on the path of continuous improvement.”

Birks added that she did not want to respond to specific allegations in more detail because they are personnel matters.

Evaluations of a school superintendent’s performance are legally matters of public record.

I am committed to serving as Superintendent for the 21,500 students and families, 3,000 plus employees, the Board of Education, the citizens of New Haven and other stakeholders,” Birks added. I look forward to beginning the new school year and working diligently with my Team to welcome families back!”

Change Schools Tonight

A. Prete Construction

Columbus Family Academy, the new destination for a summer Head Start program.

Pinto sent the formal complaint to Lisa Mack, the human resources director, after Superintendent Birks ripped into him for trying to wait an extra day to move a summer program between two Fair Haven schools.

On July 2, during a weekly one-on-one meeting with Birks, Pinto told her that the air conditioning at John S. Martinez School — the site of a Head Start program and a Parks & Recreation camp — had been shorting out.

Pinto said that his staff was putting out a bid for new chillers that would bring the system back to full capacity. He suggested adding cooling fans and continuing repairs on Wednesday, then using the four-day holiday weekend to move to Columbus Academy, about seven blocks away, for Monday.

Birks said that was too long, that she wanted the move to happen on Wednesday. Pinto said that it couldn’t happen in time. Birks reiterated that she wanted to accelerate the move,” he wrote.

She asked Iline Tracey, an assistant superintendent, to facilitate. After the meeting, Pinto went over to Tracey’s office, where he found her already meeting with Deputy Superintendent Velazquez and two members of the early childhood team, School Readiness Director Mary Derwin and Head Start Director Elizabeth Gaffney.

After he told them about the plans, Velazquez, Gaffney and Derwin all expressed that the move was not feasible. The move required teachers to move their classroom materials as well as alerting the parents of the students of the move,” Pinto wrote. In addition, Gaffney stated that there was no way to recall the teachers who had already gone home for the day. … [A]ll present agreed that moving the program in time for school on July 3, 2019 was not possible.”

Still worried about the temperatures at Martinez, the five of them agreed to cancel Head Start the following day to give teachers and tradesmen time to move.

But after Tracey told the superintendent about their new plan in a phone call, Birks immediately shut it down. They revised it by deciding to keep Martinez open for one more day, then move after classes ended, while installing fans and taking temperature readings throughout the day.

Tracey sent Birks an email about what would be happening around 6 p.m.

About an hour later, Birks called Pinto. For close to a minute, she yelled that he hadn’t followed a clear directive and threatened to write him up if he didn’t make plans to move before school started, before she hung up, he wrote.

The call was wholly unprofessional,” Pinto wrote. Dr. Birks was screaming the whole time. It was demeaning and did not even allow for the response that I had not made the decision alone; rather the decision had been made collectively, and that all present thought it was not possible to meet the July 3, 2019 move date.”

The three other supervisors received similar phone calls, he added.

Birks then sent an email to the group, calling their plan inappropriate, unacceptable and disrespectful to our children and families.” She asked for a new plan to be in her inbox within 45 minutes, before 8 p.m.

Pinto called up the transportation director and arranged for buses to transport students, once classes resumed after the 7:30 a.m. move. Pinto said that the district normally doesn’t transport Head Start students over the summer, because the young students require seat belts and car seats,” but the director made special arrangements.

Gaffney and her staff, meanwhile, made calls to all the parents that evening, up until 9:30 p.m.

Close to midnight, Birks wrote back, Thank you for the collaborative Team effort!”

Birks later singled Pinto out for the blame. She sent Pinto an email the morning after the move.

I was very disturbed this past week regarding you not putting our students’ safety first in your decision making,” Birks wrote. This is the second time that you were aware that the air conditioning units at schools were faulty and you did not take immediate action to problem solve as to ensure that we safeguard the children and staff.”

In fact, after I gave you a strong directive to move students to another location you decided not to implement effective leadership practices and was not going to relocate students based on minor technical challenges that were resolved after I had to intervene and create a sense of urgency for other members on the Team,” she added. This email serves as a warning that if you do not correct your performance and adopt an all kids first stance every day in your approach to your role as Chief Operating Office with New Haven Public Schools you will face disciplinary action.”

Not The First Time

Pinto, with Assistant Superintendent Paul Whyte, after Birks vetoed the Riverside’s recommendation for a new location in late May.

In the complaint, Pinto wrote that the phone call hadn’t been a one-off incident.”

It is part of a pattern of unprofessional, insulting, mocking and demeaning comments that Dr. Birks has taken with me, and indeed with all of her staff,” he wrote.

At the end of the complaint, he listed several other incidents in which he said that Birks had belittled the senior-level employees around her.

In late May, Pinto presented to the Board of Ed’s Finance & Operations Committee about a plan to move Riverside Education Academy to a new location, after the school board spared it from closure.

Christopher Peak Photo

Strong School: Riverside’s unanimous pick for a new home, vetoed by Birks.

Pinto and Paul Whyte, the assistant superintendent who oversees the city’s high schools, both initially talked about trying to move to a site on Orchard Street, which Strong School is vacating in January 2020 for its new campus.

The Riverside design team reached a consensus” that they’d like to stay at the current location until they could permanently transition to Orchard Street, according to Larry Conaway, the former principal. Pinto said he and Whyte agreed, calling it the least disruptive to the academic activity of the school and the best balance with the move for the Facilities Department.”

Midway through that meeting, when Joe Rodriguez, the committee chair, asked for a recommendation, Birks shot her staff a look. She wanted the alternative school to move to Hallock Avenue, the former site of New Horizons.

At the podium, Pinto and Whyte hesitated to make that recommendation, talking around it. After Birks joined them at the podium, Whyte finally said, The superintendent’s recommendation is making Hallock a permanent location.”

That led to confusion from board members. Not moving to Strong?” asked Yesenia Rivera, the vice-chair. Because that’s what I was hearing.”

That was their recommendation,” Birks said.

From Dr. Whyte and the committee is temporary space at the old New Horizons, then a permanent location at Strong?” Rodriguez followed up.

That was where we started with, but it would be making Hallock the permanent space,” Whyte finally said. The design team had other ideas, but this is where we are going.”

In a debrief after, Pinto said Whyte told him, “‘Everyone’ on staff has gone through this previously with Dr. Birks.”

Riot?

A riot?

In early June, when students at Hill Regional Career High School walked out in protest against the involuntary transfer of their teachers, Pinto said Birks asked him what I was planning to do to prevent a riot.’”

After he said that a riot” wasn’t likely, Pinto said, Birks raised her voice.

You don’t know what you’re talking about! I am the supervisor!” he recalled Birks saying. Get police assistance.”

Students at Career said Birks mischaracterized their demonstration.

In no way were we rioting,” Gabriela Soriano, one of the student organizers, told the Independent Monday. We really cared about our teachers and took a stand to protect them in a peaceful protest outside of school, not disrupting the teaching environment.”

Michelle Cortes, another organizer, said she felt bringing in cops was unnecessary” for the protest.

I see where [Birks] comes from, however, we’re just kids,” Cortes, wrote in a text message. It felt somewhat dehumanizing to me, she treated us as if we were like these wild animals.”

Pinto attached pages of a journal he began keeping in late May to back up his allegations. He said that other high-level supervisors would corroborate Birks’s ongoing behavior in an investigation.

In a follow-up conversation that’s described in one of those contemporaneous memos, just a day after the walkouts, Pinto said Birks mocked him.

Don’t exaggerate,” she said in a taunting, sing-song voice” to imitate him. Birks continued, You had 200 kids out there. What did you do?” Pinto said he’d stationed four cops and four security guards at the school, as she’d asked. I did the work,” Birks said.

In a contemporaneous memo, Pinto wrote, I can’t recall in my professional and work career having been treated this way, insulted, personally dressed down in private and public, with others in the room. It is demeaning.”

Don’t Get Funky With Me”

A week later, in mid-June, on a telephone call to prepare the rollout of the district’s new website to the board’s Finance & Operations Committee, Pinto said that the IT employees he supervises would all be ready to present and that all the contracts they’d requested had been scrutinized.” But Pinto said the conversation quickly devolved to another episode of … insult.”

Don’t get funky with me,” Birks said.

Funky?” Pinto asked.

Yes, your tone,” Birks said.

Pinto said he told her that he’d never been so poorly treated” in a workplace.

This time, Birks asked for clarification.

Poorly treated?” she said. You just don’t want to take direction.”

This job is difficult, the superintendent has made it impossible and untenable. [Another employee] is planning to leave because his work is never valued by Dr. Birks and he is regularly insulted,” Pinto wrote in a contemporaneous memo. This workplace is hostile and grotesque, causing difficulties among executive staff.”

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