Sean C. Morgan
The Bureau of Labor and Industries dismissed a complaint filed last year by Foster Elementary Principal Gloria Mittleman for lack of substantial evidence.
“As always, I’ll continue to do what’s best for the staff, students and community,” Mittleman told The New Era. She had no further comment on the complaint and did not say whether she would file a lawsuit.
Mittleman filed the complaint with BOLI on May 15 while still principal at Hawthorne Elementary. She started working there in 1997.
Mittleman accused School District 55, former Supt. Bill Hampton and Supt. Larry Horton of disability discrimination and harassment over her diabetes and retaliation.
Mittleman’s diabetes makes her insulin dependent; affects her eating, energy level and ability to respond to illness; and she must constantly monitor her blood surgar levels, she said in her complaint. During the time she worked for Supt. Hampton, her performance evaluations were satisfactory, but she started having health problems.
Following disc surgery, on May 22, 2002, the date Mittleman alleged the discrimination to have started, the complaint claims that Supt. Hampton told her he did not want her to return to work and to get a doctor’s release for the rest of the school year.
“He then talked to me about my health condition and criticized me for missing time and for having to leave meetings due to my diabetes,” Mittleman said in the complaint. “He told me he wanted me to vacate my principal’s position and take another ‘coordinator’ position in the next school year so that I could fully recover and have a ‘transition’ time to look at other options in and out of the district.
Mittleman said he later offered a “buyout” of her contract followed by an order to clean out her office in June 2002. She then met with Supt. Hampton and the incoming superintendent, Horton.
“Mr. Hampton proceeded to complain about my attendance and that the staff did not like dealing with my health issues,” Mittleman said in her complaint. “He tried to convince me to leave my principal position. By this time, I was emotionally unable to work and did not work the rest of the school year.”
Mittleman said she was under special scrutiny by Supt. Horton after that and in the second week of school five staff members had anonymously explained concerns to him.
Mittleman filed a notice of tort claim with the district about her treatment in November 2002, she said in her complaint. The next month, Supt. Horton outlined staff concerns and asked her to survey her staff to get their perceptions of her, the survey being created by Supt. Horton.
“He then met with me in the first week of February (2002) and focused on any criticism he could find in the surveys,” Mittleman said in the complaint. “I complained that no one else had been forced to go through such a survey process. He acted like any criticism was true and that his standard for me was that no one who worked for me and no parent should be critical of me, that I had to please everyone, regardless of their performance issues or wrongful motivation.”
She was placed on a “vague” plan of assistance, according to the complaint, and her contract was “non-extended” in the March 2003 renewals by the School Board.