Amankwah v. Dep't of Educ. of N.Y.

• Decision Date: 10 April 2019
• Docket Number: INDEX NO. 159310/2017
• Citation: 2019 NY Slip Op 31033 (U)
• Parties: In the Matter of LUCKISHA AMANKWAH, Petitioner, v. THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK and THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, Respondent.
• Court: New York Supreme Court

2019 NY Slip Op 31033(U)

In the Matter of LUCKISHA AMANKWAH, Petitioner,
v.
THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK and THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, Respondent.

INDEX NO. 159310/2017

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK NEW YORK COUNTY PART IAS MOTION 56EFM

RECEIVED: April 18, 2019
April 10, 2019

NYSCEF DOC. NO. 79

PRESENT: HON. JOHN J. KELLEY Justice

MOTION DATE 10/19/2017

MOTION SEQ. NO. 001

DECISION AND ORDER

The following e-filed documents, listed by NYSCEF document number (Motion 001) 3, 6, 7, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 77 were read on this motion to/for CPLR ARTICLE 78 REVIEW.

I. INTRODUCTION

In this CPLR article 78 proceeding, the petitioner seeks judicial review of a New York City Department of Education (DOE) determination finding that she performed unsatisfactorily as an assistant principal, resulting in the termination of her appointment as a probationary assistant principal and returning her to her previous position as a teacher with the DOE. The DOE answered the petition and filed the administrative record, which includes letters, warnings, prior disciplinary memos, and other relevant documentation. The petition is denied and the proceeding is dismissed.

II. BACKGROUND

The petitioner alleges that she has worked for the DOE since 1997, beginning as a teacher, becoming a teacher mentor in 2004, and being promoted to a tenured Education

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Administrator in 2010. In November 2012, the petitioner was promoted to Assistant Principal in the central support office of the DOE's Office of Adult and Continuing Education (OACE). This position was subject to a five-year probation period.

The petitioner avers that, in or about May 2015, Superintendent Rose-Marie Mills asked her to visit classrooms to provide support for and to evaluate two teachers. The petitioner notes that it was highly unusual to provide support for teachers during the last two months of the school year, and she suspected that Mills wished her to report negatively so as to retaliate against those teachers for their frequent filing of grievances. The petitioner evaluated those teachers' performance as acceptable. Although her report did not explicitly employ the word "satisfactory" to describe their performance, she nonetheless provided a positive narrative of her observations.

The petitioner contends that, in retaliation for refusing to submit a negative review of the two teachers who were under scrutiny, Mills immediately removed her from the OACE central support office and reassigned her to an Adult and Continuing Education program at P.S. 13 in Brooklyn. She further asserts that her assessment of the two teachers ultimately was rejected by the relevant principal, who resubmitted the evaluation as a negative review. The petitioner alleges that, on or about November 1, 2016, Superintendent Mills warned her that "this is not a battle that you are going to win," and threatened to have her principal write several negative reviews of her own performance for inclusion in her personnel file.

The petitioner received two disciplinary letters, dated December 21, 2016, and March 17, 2017, respectively. The first letter, written by her principal, Tiffany Taylor-Oates, after a disciplinary meeting on December 16, 2016, criticized the petitioner for openly stating at the meeting that the maintenance of the computerized student intake tracker program was "too much work for the staff" and that, if the Average Daily Attendance was low, it would wrongly "be assumed by Central that the teacher's lesson is not engaging or that the teacher is not teaching." Taylor-Oates opined that these statements were unprofessional, in that they

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demonstrated that the petitioner could not keep up with her assignments and cast aspersions on the integrity of DOE's teacher evaluation process. Taylor-Oates also informed the petitioner that,

"as the Assistant Principal supporting sites, it is imperative that your visits focus on improving the quality of instruction at the sites you are responsible for. When students do not show improvement, it is our responsibility to determine the barriers and address them. I urge you to provide specific guidance to teachers and also utilize the coach in ensuring that our students receive high quality instruction."

She further advised the petitioner that "the above misconduct may lead to further disciplinary action including an unsatisfactory rating and charges under the Education Law, which may lead to your termination."

In the letter dated March 17, 2017, Taylor-Oates criticized the petitioner for failing to update and maintain the Average Daily Attendance tracker computer program and receiving 17 separate notices from DOE headquarters over a two-month period that the data had not been updated. Taylor-Oates also asserted that the petitioner failed to adhere to certain Leadership Protocols concerning the improvement in the classroom environments for the 11 classes that she supervised, and that the expected improvement in the classroom environment had not materialized. As with the December 21, 2016, letter, the March 17, 2017, letter warned the petitioner that her "above failure to perform your duties and responsibilities may lead to further disciplinary action including an unsatisfactory rating and charges under the Education Law, which may lead to your termination."

On June 21, 2017, the petitioner was given a rating of "unsatisfactory" (hereinafter a "U-rating), her probationary status as an Assistant Principal was discontinued effective July 31, 2017, and she was returned to her prior status as an Education Administrator.

The petitioner contends that all of the DOE's disciplinary actions were undertaken in retaliation for her favorable assessment of the two teachers she was asked to evaluate. She argues that the comments criticized by Taylor-Oates were taken out of context, and falsely

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suggested that she was unable to complete the tasks assigned to her. She claims that, contrary to the DOE's findings, she complied with its request to facilitate a presentation on attendance and student engagement. She further claims that any missing computer entries for which she was blamed were not under her purview, and that there was a conflict between her assigned responsibilities and the deadlines for the computer entry of attendance counts. The petitioner further asserts that she was unable to fulfill her duties in maintaining an attendance data base and generating required reports because of problems with internet connectivity, and that no one from the information technology staff responded to her requests for assistance. She thus argues that all of the negative reviews were explainable, and that these...