Former Shiprock school official awarded back pay

By John Christian Hopkins
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — The Navajo Nation Labor Commission has issued an interim order that awards back pay and other compensation to former Shiprock Alternative Schools Inc.'s Director of Support Services Faye BlueEyes.

BlueEyes, who had worked for SASI for 25 years, was fired June 9, 2005; she had been on suspension since May 3, 2005.

She was under a three-year contract that paid her $84,411, salary plus benefits. The contract was to expire June 30 of this year.

Termination
Under the commission's ruling which is final if neither side appeals it BlueEyes is entitled to back pay, plus compensation for any unused vacation or sick days. She is due her full salary from June 9, 2005 until Aug. 18, 2005 when she took another job. From Aug. 8, 2005, to the present date, SASI is ordered to pay BlueEyes the difference in her current pay and what she was due under her SASI contract.

Farmington Attorney Douglas Moeller was contacted by the school board President Jennifer Laughter and two SASI administrators Elsie Charles and Melissa Culler to conduct an independent investigation of the charges leveled against BlueEyes.

Moeller's probe found ample reason to terminate BlueEyes "immediately" for violations of the SASI personnel manual. Among Moeller's findings were that BlueEyes had falsified documents, was guilty of "excessive absenteeism, tardiness or job abandonment," theft and/or destruction of school property, misuse of SASI time and resources and unprofessionalism.

Kangaroo court?
Dubbed an independent investigation, the labor board found reasons to question the impartiality of the proceedings. In the same May 9, 2005, memo in which he recommended BlueEyes be terminated, Moeller also said if BlueEyes decided to protest this verdict, he would act as "prosecutor" for an appeal hearing before the school board.

On May 13, 2005, Moeller sent a memo to BlueEyes informing her of the investigation's results. In addition to the five SASI manual violations, Moeller told BlueEyes that she had failed in 10 areas of her management duties; among them that she failed to monitor and account for money from petty cash and the soda machine, unfair allocation of salaries, failure to support audits and financial reports in a timely manner and having an "abrasive and dictatorial" management style.

Ten days later, BlueEyes responded to the charges in writing and requested a "due process" hearing as an SASI employee. Moeller informed her that she was not considered to be a "employee," in her position as support services director.

A hearing was arranged for June 9, 2005 where the school board would act as "hearing officer," and any issues regarding the relevancy of questions, evidence or misconduct at the meeting would be decided by Moeller.

A special meeting was held June 9, 2005. In his opening remarks, attorney Justin Jones representing BlueEyes asked why there was not an impartial hearing officer as called for under SASI's personnel manual and what role Moeller was playing in the proceedings.

Moeller became angered by these questions, and shouted, "You are here as a guest. You are not to question how this is to run. You questioning how this is going to run is not going to happen. You will address the 10 issues and that's it."

About two minutes into his opening statement, Moeller had Jones and BlueEyes expelled from the meeting. The appeals hearing ended, and the school board immediately went into executive session and voted to fire BlueEyes.

Not only was BlueEyes denied an appeal hearing, but the school board did not even consider her 18-page response to the charges against her.

Discrepancies
Laughter had testified that SASI provided BlueEyes "sufficient notice" as to why she was being terminated. The school board met with her to discuss her poor job performance evaluation, Laughter said.

But school board members Eva Stokely and Sarah White contradicted Laughter's claim. Stokely said she did not recall such a meeting with BlueEyes, and White told the labor commission that BlueEyes had not been evaluated at all in the spring of 2005.

BlueEyes said she was not aware of any poor performance evaluation until the day she was first placed on administrative leave; and, even then, she said she was not told any specific reasons for the poor evaluation.

The labor commission decided that SASI had not given notice of just reasons for her termination, since the notice failed to state that the action was taken based on the findings of Moeller's investigation.

Furthermore the school board decided to hire an independent investigator but the board deviated in the method of evaluations and Charles, as Human Resources director, randomly selected seven subordinates to conduct the evaluation, and summarized each of the summaries in such a way as to input her personal opinion.

"The accuracy and thoroughness of the investigation is questionable at best as a close reading of the findings appear to be based on personal opinions," the labor board found.

Though hired to be impartial, Moeller's objectivity became questionable, the labor commission said. Along the way, his role "morphed" from independent investigator to acting as judge during the aborted due process hearing with the authority to determine what evidence could be submitted, the commission determined.

SASI did not present any evidence other than the findings in Moeller's investigation and continued to terminate BlueEyes "based solely on an investigation that was conducted by a person who had an interest in the outcome" and would eventually act as "prosecutor, judge and legal advisor to the (school) board."

And though the SASI manual plainly states that the hearing officer for an employee appeal "shall not be an official or employee of the school," the school board was set to act as hearing officer.

Just cause or just because?
The labor commission said that SASI did not produce a preponderance of evidence to support its reasons for terminating BlueEyes and the investigation was based on interviews in which some people seemed to base their comments on "hearsay or their own personal opinion."

The school board did not present any documentation of BlueEye's alleged wrongdoing, such as travel slips, budgets, purchase orders or someone who had actual knowledge of any misconduct.

Her supports said it started when former teachers became school board members and set out to get BlueEyes.

One such concern was raised by former board member Roy Tso.

"It was a method for them and their vendetta against Faye.They are former employee's of SASI, and Faye was in the administration and they did their wrongs and were let go and this was a great chance for them to get back at her. Deviating from policy and using staff to do that, it was a good cover for them to orchestrate this whole thing," Tso charged.

When parents asked for answers, the school board kept them waiting for six hours while it met in executive session, Tso said.

Some of the current school board members questioned Moeller's role and how he came to be hired. School board member Lawrence Marshall pointed out that he hadn't received ground rules for the meeting and even asked who had hired Moeller and allowed him to control the meeting. Board member Sarah White joined him in questioning the proceedings.

With Moeller's position unknown, Laughter called an executive meeting to discuss Moeller's involvement with the board. It was an executive meeting that involved a heated exchange among the board members and saw Marshall walk out, declaring, "They (the board) don't listen, so I'm leaving. It's all confused. I'm here for the kids. I wasn't here when they hired that guy. I don't know what they're doing; he doesn't have a contract with the school board."

Payback?
BlueEyes has maintained that the reason for the charges against her and her termination only came after she spoke out against credit card misuse by administration members Melissa Culler and Scott Hunsinger.

"The primary reason why I got put on leave was to get me out of the way so that the new school board members can have at it with the funds, and so that Hunsinger and Culler and do what they want," BlueEyes said at the time.

The SASI school board appointed Hunsinger as acting director of Support Services following BlueEye's ouster.

The whole BlueEyes situation was "a mess," according to White. Four of the six school board members were "beginning to abuse their power," she said.

Allegations were hurled against BlueEyes but no evidence was ever presented, White said.

White has even gone so far as to file complaints against administrators but has seen those complaints dismissed by the school board.

Keeping it under wraps
When this controversy first erupted, Hunsinger, as acting director, issued a memo to SASI teachers reemphasizing the policy on talking with the media.

Others said that the teachers' contracts were held up as a way to keep any from speaking out and risk losing their jobs.

The effort to keep the matter under wraps seemed to even extend to the labor commission office where Director Anselm Bitsoi stalled release of the labor commission's interim order.

Asked in writing for a copy of the commission's report in late January, Bitsoi denied any such report existed. He said twice that the commission had not reached any decision.

However, the interim decision was dated December 20, 2006.

John Christian Hopkins can be reached at hopkins1960@hotmail.com or by calling 505-371-5443