Friday, July 28, 2023, 5:55 pm News Flash Archive

In his Petition for Appellate Review, filed yesterday with the Leflore County Chancery Court, former Superintendent James Johnson-Waldington finally got his chance to lay out his defense in detail before an impartial court.

He is represented by Chynee Bailey, on behalf of the Mississippi Association of Educators, sometimes described as a teacher's union.

His petition may be seen here: Petition for Review by the Leflore County Chancery Court

Johnson-Waldington was hired as of July 1, 2022 by the Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District board to serve as its next superintendent.

But he was unceremoniously fired just 11 months later, on June 6, 2023, apparently with no previous notice being given him.

With this new court filing, Johnson-Waldington takes his case to the chancery court for review. The case has been assigned to Chancellor Willie J. Perkins, Sr. of Greenwood.

The petition discloses several interesting facts regarding his short-lived tenure and the swift proceedings taken against him.

According to the petition, his contract originally ran through June 30, 2025, but in late 2022, the board voted to extend the contract through June 30, 2026.

The initial vote to hire Johnson-Waldington was three to two, with Samantha Milton, Jackie Lewis, and Magdalene Abraham voting in favor, and Ro'Shaun Bailey and Dr. Kalanya Moore voting against it.

But the November 2022 school board elections saw the balance of power on the board shift, with Board President Samantha Milton being replaced by Henry Fant.

And on June 6, Bailey, Moore and Fant voted in favor of the superintendent's termination. The board confronted Johnson-Waldington in executive session, with the public and the media excluded.

According to the petition:

Prior to the vote for termination, Dr. Roshun [sic] Bailey, President of the Board of Trustees of GLCSD, read two of the bases for termination and provided Johnson-Waldington an opportunity to respond.

No documents were provided to Johnson-Waldington prior to termination, nor was he provided an opportunity to respond in writing to any [of] the bases for termination.

On June 7, 2023, Carlos Palmer, the attorney for the GLCSD, transmitted correspondence to Johnson-Waldington advising that he was relieved of all duties as of the date of dismissal, setting forth the five bases for termination, and advising that he could request a hearing within five days.

Based upon what we have been told so far, it appears that the board disclosed to Johnson-Waldington only two of the five reasons for dismissal before it voted to dismiss him.

According to the petition, the five reasons were only disclosed in writing to him the day after his dismissal by the board. They were:

Subpar results/data from 3rd grade state testing for the 2022-2023 school year;

Violation of the Educator Code of Ethics (as based upon testimony you provided during testimony (sic) for Kellia Washington's hearing in December 2022);

Fiscal mismanagement (not proactively tracking the District's fund balance and consequently borrowing 16th section land funds to cover payroll-December 2022);

Failure to notify MDE of special called meeting for May 31, 2023 pursuant to MDE prior directive;

Violation of the due process rights of employee Talonda Henderson.

According to the petition, Johnson-Waldington promptly requested a public hearing on his termination, but the board refused to grant his request that the hearing be held by an impartial hearing officer, and instead decided to hear the matter itself.

The hearing took place on July 7, 2023, at 5:00 p.m. At the outstart of the hearing the board attempted to limit the time of the hearing to one hour. After an initial vote in favor of same and after arguments protesting the limitation from undersigned counsel, the board voted and authorized the Petitioner the amount of time needed to present evidence to rebut the bases for termination.

In his petition for review, Johnson-Waldington lays out his defense before the board during the public hearing:

As to subpar results/data from 3rd grade state testing for the 2022-2023 school year, Petitioner submitted initial test scores from 2022 and 2023 which indicated a nine percent (9%) increase in 2023.

Moreover, Johnson-Waldington submitted evidence that there were no specific target goals ever provided to him by the board. In order to hold himself accountable, Petitioner submitted SMART goals to the board which were ultimately adopted. The SMART goals included a goal to increase 3rd grade ELA scores by five percent (5%). The goal was not only met, but almost doubled.

As to the alleged violation of the Educator Code of Ethics (as based upon testimony provided during Kellia Washington's hearing in December 2022), Petitioner offered for consideration the Educator Code of Ethics which incorporates an element of intent in the Standard of Trustworthiness. It specifically provides that an educator should not "knowingly engage in deceptive practices".

Johnson-Waldington testified that he had no idea that the board was in executive session when he was on speaker phone with then board president Samantha Milton.

Moreover, Samantha Milton testified that while she was certain that she stated that the board was in executive session, she could not be certain that information was heard by Johnson-Waldington. She further testified that there was no violation or other basis for Petitioner to be untruthful regarding his presence during executive session.

Importantly, Bailey and Fant were proponents of a motion at the January 4, 2023, board meeting to reprimand Petitioner regarding this same alleged violation of the Code of Ethics, and the motion failed with Abraham, Lewis and Moore voting against it.

As to fiscal mismanagement, the testimony was undisputed that the budget was adopted on July 5, 2022, four days after Petitioner began working as the superintendent and that he had no input whatsoever in the budget.

The testimony further indicated that at the time of adoption, there was a significant shortfall.

Johnson-Waldington came into office and began putting measures in place to address issues in the business office, such as getting the board to approve MSBA personnel to perform bank reconciliations.

In December, he proposed two options in order to meet payroll -- borrow from 16th Section funds or obtain a short-term loan. All board members, with the exception of Samantha Milton, voted in favor of borrowing the funds needed to make payroll from 16th section funds. Because of Petitioner's actions, no employees of GLCSD missed a payroll check in December of 2022.

As to failure to notify MDE of special called meeting for May 31, 2023 pursuant to MDE prior directive, Petitioner testified that MDE was in fact notified of the special called meeting. In fact, several representatives of MDE traveled from Jackson to attend said meeting.

As to the alleged violation of the due process rights of employee Talonda Henderson, Johnson-Waldington testified that Miss. Code Ann. Section 37-9-59 allowed him to take the actions he did based on his assessment that the employee was a danger to other students and a potential disruption to the school environment.

The daughters of this employee were involved in a physical altercation involving several students. A ring video camera captured this particular employee after transporting her daughters to the home of another student for a subsequent physical altercation, and while there, the employee questioned those present regarding the location of the residence of another student involved in the initial physical altercation. The employee subsequently lied about her actions during her daughters' disciplinary hearing.

Johnson-Waldington's petition sums up the evidence cited against him:

The evidence offered at the hearing illustrated that the justifications given by the board for dismissal lacked any supporting evidence and were not worthy of a single reprimand, let alone termination.

At the time of his termination, Johnson-Waldington was not on a plan of improvement, had no verbal or written reprimands, and had a satisfactory evaluation in December of 2022.

The public hearing was to no avail, since the same five people were reviewing a decision they had made just a month earlier. As the petition describes it:

At the conclusion of the hearing, the board deliberated. The motion was made to reinstate Johnson-Waldington to the position of superintendent, and the vote was 2 in favor (Abraham and Lewis) and 2 against (Bailey and Fant), with one recusal (Moore).

Johnson-Waldington asks that the court make the following findings:

Johnson-Waldington should be restored to his position as superintendent of Greenwood Leflore Consolidated Schools due to his termination being unlawful for the following reasons:

The termination was not supported by any substantial evidence;

The termination was arbitrary or capricious; and

The termination was in violation of Johnson-Waldington's constitutional right of due process.

The petition urges the court to carefully review the transcript of the post-termination hearing before making its decision:

. . . this Court should find that none of the offered bases are supported by substantial evidence and are therefore insufficient to uphold termination.

. . . this Court should find that the termination of Johnson-Waldington was arbitrary or capricious. An act is "arbitrary" when it is "not done according to reason or judgment, but depending on the will alone." An action is "capricious" if it is "done without reason, in a whimsical manner, implying either a lack of understanding of or a disregard for the surrounding facts and settled controlling principles."

. . . this Court should find that the termination of Johnson-Waldington was in violation of his constitutional right to due process. Petitioner was not notified of three of the bases for termination prior to his dismissal and consequently did not have an opportunity to respond to them.

Johnson-Waldington is asking the chancery court:

that he be restored to his position as Superintendent of Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District. Petitioner also requests that he be awarded backpay, fringe and all other contractual benefits, and such other relief to which the Petitioner may be entitled.

To view our previous reporting on this matter, see here: Dismissed Greenwood Leflore County School Superintendent James Johnson-Waldington not reinstated after board hearing yesterday

Video of the public hearing may be seen here: School Board Hearing, July 7, 2023

John Pittman Hey
The Taxpayers Channel

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