Labor & Employment Law

Confidential ?warning memorandum? sent to employee

Confidential ?warning memorandum? sent to employee
Appeal of L.M. from action of the Board of Education of the Longwood Central School District regarding a personnel matter. Decisions of the Commissioner of Education, Decision No. 15,690

L.M. is a principal at one of Longwood Central School District?s schools. In the course of a meeting convened by the school superintendent L.M. expressed dissatisfaction with a decision previously made by an assistant superintendent. Sometime later the assistant superintendent issued a warning memorandum to L.M. indicating that his ?conduct during the meeting was inappropriate.?

L.M. wrote to the superintendent claiming that his conduct at the meeting was professional and that he had the right to present issues of concern. He also argued that the assistant superintendent issued the warning to harass and intimidate him for filing an EEOC complain and requested that the warning be expunged from his record.

Later L.M., his union representative and the superintendent met to discuss the warning memorandum. After the meeting the superintendent wrote to L.M. indicating that L.M.?s comments during the meeting were inappropriate and that the warning was a confidential communication to L.M. and not placed in or made part of his personnel file.

L.M. appealed to the Commissioner of Education, contending that [1] the district?s actions were arbitrary and capricious; [2] that he has the right to bring legitimate building concerns to the superintendent?s attention; [3] that his conduct during the meeting was not inappropriate or unprofessional; and [4] that he did not ?verbally attack or criticize? the assistant principal. L.M. asked the Commissioner to have the communication expunged from his personnel file.

The Commissioner dismissed L.M.?s appeal, ruling that it was moot in that the superintendent?s written reply to L.M. and his affidavit submitted in defending this appeal indicate that the warning letter sent to him was a confidential communication from a supervising assistant superintendent to L.M. and not part of his personnel file.

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on May 19, 2008 (boomark / email).