Board of Education members voted unanimously to approve a total of nearly $1.3 million to settle federal defamation lawsuits from two former Lincoln Park High School basketball coaches. But fallout from the 2020 scandal in which CPS abruptly fired two coaches and two managers and laid off other staff members continues.
By agreeing to pay $775,000 to former women’s college basketball head coach Larry Washington and $495,000 to former men’s college basketball head coach Patrice Gordon, CPS will close the civil complaints filed by each of the coaches in 2021, alleging denial of due process and infliction of emotional distress in addition to defamation.
CPS also agreed to separately pay Gordon $95,000 in July, to settle a grievance the Service Employees International Union filed on his behalf, in his other former role as a security guard at CPS.
Washington told the Tribune he intends to continue to seek an apology or retraction granted to him in a separate grievance procedure, by an independent arbitrator who concluded that CPS had publicly linked fired staffers to vague accusations involving sexual relations and retaliation. The district then sent an “blatantly false and/or misleading” message to the school community after the Office of Inspector General found that Washington’s actions were “neither sexually motivated nor in retaliation.” , according to the decision of the referee.
At Friday’s board meeting, Chicago Principals and Administrators Association President Troy LaRaviere said recent revelations about CPS’s response to since-unfounded complaints of misconduct at Lincoln Park in 2020 had ongoing implications.
According to an Office of Inspector General investigation that concluded in June, a former top CPS official, with a “clear” conflict of interest as a Lincoln Park basketball parent, violated a “myriad » policies by conducting a secret investigation involving the girls’ team that “tainted” a separate and “significantly flawed” investigation into the boys’ team.
CPS watchdog agency’s investigation into former Office of Student Protection chief Camie Pratt says she abused her position, lied about recusing herself from cases involving Lincoln Park and hid information from the inspector general’s office. Pratt’s “uninvestigated and unproven” allegations prompted the executives’ firings, according to the OIG report.
A rebuttal that Pratt’s attorney submitted to CPS for inclusion in her personnel file asserts that she could not have violated “an unwritten conflict of interest policy.” The rebuttal accuses the OIG of making “baseless” claims, failing to hire outside counsel, failing to interview “key” witnesses, and failing to distinguish between Pratt’s actions as as a private citizen and as a public official. “Pratt is not a liar,” wrote his lawyer Laura Feldman.
Speaking to new board members Friday, LaRaviere said principals are critical to implementing board initiatives, but many lack trust in CPS. “School principals can take your policies and guidelines and turn them into real, positive changes for students. »
But, LaRaviere added, “these same school leaders fear unfair or illegal investigations without due process, such as the abusive investigation against the principal and vice-principal of Lincoln Park High School.” He said recent layoffs of principals at several schools had similar flaws.
CPS did not immediately have a comment.
