Ex-Millcreek schools official sues over demotion, adding to legal issues under Ian Roberts

Before he left the Millcreek Township School District on June 30 to lead Iowa's largest public school system, Superintendent Ian Roberts reduced the number of the Millcreek School District's top officials — the 12 central administrators he called members of his "core team."

The Millcreek School Board, which signed off on the new plan, is facing legal fallout from the changes just as Roberts' successor as superintendent, John Cavanagh, takes over to start the 2023-24 academic year.

One of the administrators Roberts demoted under the reorganization, Joe Orlando, is suing the Millcreek School Board. Orlando is claiming Roberts downgraded his position in a way that barred the board from reducing his salary under the Pennsylvania School Code.

Orlando was making $119,700 a year as the district's director of elementary education. Roberts demoted him to a sixth-grade English teacher at J.S. Wilson Middle School with a salary of $80,279, according to court records.

Orlando challenged the move at a hearing before the School Board. The school directors rejected the challenge and unanimously approved the demotion on June 26 — four days before Roberts departed the 6,400-student Millcreek School District for the 30,000-student Des Moines Public Schools in Iowa. The demotion was effective July 1.

Orlando has since left the Millcreek School District. He resigned effective Aug. 11 and started a new job on Aug. 14, according to his LinkedIn account and Millcreek School Board records.

His lawsuit remains active in Erie County Common Pleas Court. On July 24, he took the rare step of suing to appeal the School Board's June 26 decision to demote him. The suit was served on the Millcreek School District on Aug. 9, and the School Board has until the end of the month to respond to the suit in court, according to court records.

Though he is no longer employed at the Millcreek School District, Orlando could still pursue the suit in Common Pleas Court. Among other things, he could try to get the full amount of pay he claims he should have received after he was demoted but before he left the school district — a period of about six weeks, according to the suit. His lawyer, Richard Ruth, declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

The suit claims the demotion was carried out in a way that "prohibits the MTSD from reducing Joe Orlando's salary to below its current level" when he was at the school district.

The lawyer for the Millcreek School District and School Board in the case, Julia Herzing, also declined to comment. The school district has already argued Orlando's demotion was proper and done in a way that allowed the district to cut his salary.

"The evidence supports that the recommended demotion of Mr. Orlando is rational and lawful," Herzing said in a document she submitted to the School Board following the board's demotion hearing on May 17. The hearing was held in private, as the law allows.

Ruth submitted the document, called proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, as an exhibit with the lawsuit. The School Board accepted Herzing's findings of fact when the board voted to demote Orlando on June 26.

Demotion lawsuit follows big settlement in unrelated case

The School Board approved Orlando's demotion at the same June 26 board meeting at which the school directors unanimously resolved another issue that developed during Roberts' nearly three-year tenure as superintendent. The board unanimously approved a $250,000 settlement agreement with the school district's former director of human resources, Melody Ellington. She held that job for about 15 months until she resigned in September.

As the Erie Times-News has reported, Ellington never filed a lawsuit, but the $250,000 settlement resolved her claims that she was subjected to "unlawful treatment" at the school district and that the treatment left her no choice but to resign, according to the agreement.

The settlement agreement, which the Erie Times-News obtained under the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law, provides no details on Ellington's claims. It includes a confidentiality clause that prohibits Ellington, Roberts or any other employees connected to the Millcreek School District from talking about the deal.

Other than Ellington, Roberts is the only former or current Millcreek School District official identified by name in the agreement. Unclear is whether his name appears because he was the subject of the claims or because he was in charge of the school district when Ellington made the claims.

Roberts did not respond to the Erie Times-News' requests for comment on the settlement. He told the Des Moines Register in an article published on July 26 that, "because this involves a personnel issue and the settlement agreement has a confidentiality clause, I am not able to discuss in detail."

"The Millcreek School Board felt it was in the school district’s interest to approve the settlement," Roberts also told the Register. "I can unequivocally say, however, that this had absolutely nothing to do with me leaving Millcreek and coming to Des Moines."

Ellington's lawyer, Richard Ruth, who is also Orlando's lawyer, has declined to comment on the settlement, citing the confidentiality clause.

Millcreek School District says demotion was proper

Orlando's lawsuit hinges on the legal interpretation of his demotion. Ruth is arguing that Roberts moved Orlando to a lesser position through what is known as a "realignment demotion" under Pennsylvania school law.

A realignment demotion is a demotion due to a reorganization or regrouping of officials within a school district, Ruth said in the proposed findings of fact that he submitted to the School Board and that are attached to the lawsuit. A realignment demotion, according to the filing, "prohibits any salary reduction."

Herzing, the lawyer for the school district, is contending that the demotion was a "pure demotion" under Pennsylvania school law, and that the School Board was allowed to cut Orlando's salary as a result. The School Board accepted Herzing's argument in voting to demote Orlando.

A pure demotion, according to the court filings, constitutes a demotion based on policy rather than economic reasons. In her findings of fact, Herzing argued that Roberts properly recommended that the School Board demote Orlando as part of Roberts' plan to make the school district's core administrative operations more efficient.

"The recommendation to demote Mr. Orlando is a result of an administrative consolidation based on Superintendent Roberts' observations, vision and recommendations for leadership, as well as through input from other data and research," Herzing said in her findings of fact. "Such demotions based on the superintendent's recommendation and vision alone have been upheld as 'rational.'"

Ruth countered by stating, in his findings of fact, that even if Orlando was given a lesser job through a pure demotion, the demotion was still based on arbitrary reasons and thus wrong. Any pure demotion of Orlando, Ruth said in the findings, was based on an improper "effort to personally target Joe Orlando's career with the Millcreek School District."

Orlando worked for the Millcreek School District for six years and worked for the Erie School District for 23 years before then, according to his LinkedIn account. He taught for 10 years before becoming an administrator.

Roberts started the job in Des Moines on July 1. He had been superintendent at the Millcreek School District since August 2020. He announced his resignation as Millcreek schools superintendent on May 12.

Demotion part of changes in curriculum department

The court records do not detail when Roberts first proposed the consolidation, but Ruth in his findings of fact said Roberts told Orlando on March 8 that he was eliminating Orlando's position of director of elementary education, leading to his demotion.

In her findings of fact, Herzing said, in a footnote, that "Roberts made all consolidation recommendations before he resigned and before he considered other career opportunities." Herzing cited Roberts' testimony at the demotion hearing before the School Board on May 17.

The consolidation focused on the top three administrators in the school district's curriculum department, according to court records. They were Orlando, the director of elementary education; Timothy Stoops, the director of alternative learning and assessment; and John Cavanagh, director of secondary education.

Roberts eliminated the positions of Orlando and Stoops and created the job of director of K-12 education, according to court records and school district records. Orlando had an opportunity to apply for the new job, according to court records.

Roberts demoted Stoops to an eighth-grade English teacher at J.S. Wilson Middle School, according to school district records. Stoops, who had been making $123,067 in his administrative post, according to state Department of Education records, also challenged his demotion at a hearing before the School Board, according to district records. The board on June 26 unanimously approved the demotion.

Stoops, who did not sue in Common Pleas Court, resigned on Friday, according to school district records. He had been at the Millcreek School District for 22 years, starting as a middle school principal in 2001, according to his LinkedIn account. He was later the principal at McDowell Intermediate High School. Stoops could not be reached for comment.

The Millcreek School Board named Cavanagh the new superintendent on July 17.

Cavanagh originally was hired by the district as a social studies teacher in 1999. He later was principal of J.S. Wilson Middle School and McDowell Intermediate High School before he moved into his first central administration post as director of secondary education.

Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNpalattella.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Ex-Millcreek schools official sues over demotion under Ian Roberts