Harrisburg School District officials are expected to finalize a $2.4 million settlement Thursday for a wrongful termination suit filed by former Superintendent Gerald Kohn.
Harrisburg School District Superintendent Gerald Kohn was released from his contract in March 2010 by the Harrisburg Board of Control. On Thursday, the Harrisburg school board is expected to give final approval to a $2.4 million settlement. 03/15/2010 DAN GLEITER, The Patriot-News
The terms of the agreement are expected to be made public once all parties have signed it.
If approved, the settlement would do more than end a long-running legal battle.
It also would close the final chapter of Kohn's leadership of the Harrisburg schools. Kohn's tenure as superintendent once offered great promise for the city's schools but ended in controversy.
Filed in 2010, the lawsuit "has dragged on and is still dragging on," said Walter Cohen, Kohn's attorney, referring to the failure to finalize the settlement after the first board vote two months ago.
"I haven't seen the signatures yet," Cohen said. "And until I see them, I won't believe it."
The pending agreement calls for the $2.4 million award and dismisses Kohn's conspiracy claim against Mayor Linda Thompson, who won’t contribute anything to that payment, her attorney Chris Dreisbach said Wednesday.
Two months ago, the board approved a settlement that never was finalized, but the details that have changed in the meantime are merely “legal minutia,” Dreisbach said.
The dispute
Kohn's allegations against Thompson stemmed from her 2009 election campaign promise to get rid of him. She blamed him for the public school district's academic failings.
Within three months of her taking office, Kohn and deputy superintendents Julie Botel and Rebecca Hostetler were fired by Thompson’s school Board of Control more than a year before their contracts were set to expire.
Kohn, who was making a $235,000 salary at the time, sued in December 2010.
Now 69, Kohn has since retired after trying and failing to find a new job, Cohen said.
“It was always, ‘What happened here?’” said Cohen, referring to prospective employers' skepticism over Kohn’s exit from Harrisburg.
Attempts to reach Kohn were unsuccessful Wednesday.
Recruited by Reed
For 10 years, Pennsylvania’s Educational Empowerment Act placed oversight of the Harrisburg School District under an appointed control boards, instead of the typically elected body. Enacted in 2000, the law was designed to turn around failing districts, notably Harrisburg.
Under the now-defunct law, the boards were appointed by the state – except in Harrisburg, where former Mayor Stephen Reed's picks got to serve.
Reed recruited Kohn, who was the district's third superintendent in five years when he came on board in 2001.
He stayed nine years, and during that time, attracted admirers beyond Reed for improved test scores, restarting the city’s preschool program and establishing an alternative education program.
Kohn had long said that it would take years to turn around the city's schools, which have long ranked as among the worst in Pennsylvania. Kohn and his defenders pointed to improved attendance and higher graduation rates. Critics contended that scores remained low and that improvements were too slow.
Kohn's dismissal
When Thompson defeated Reed in 2009, Kohn lost his staunch ally in the mayor's office.
The district had performance-based reasons for getting rid of Kohn, and acted without any pressure from Thompson, according to former control board vice-chairman Herbert Goldstein.
They took action, however, without the due process to which Kohn, Botel and Hostetler say they were entitled.
“We knew that whenever you let people go on that level, they are entitled to notice and a hearing,” said Goldstein, also a local attorney. “But under the Empowerment Act, it was (attorney James Ellison’s) advice that we didn’t have to give notice or (have a) hearing.”
A control board in Delaware County’s Chester Upland School District had handled due process similarly – and those actions had thus far weathered legal challenges when Ellison was advising Goldstein and his fellow board members.
After Kohn was let go, however, the Chester-Upland decision was overturned. Because of that, Goldstein said, he and others involved in the Harrisburg case “felt we would lose”.
“We agreed … that this was the best, to cut our losses financially and agree to this settlement,” Goldstein said.
The financial details
Ellison’s law firm, Rhoads & Sinon, will pay $250,000 of the settlement under the proposed agreement, “a small fraction” of the overall $2.4 million, Peter Shelly, a spokesman for the firm, said in a statement.
“We view this as a very favorable settlement. We stand behind the counsel we provided,” Shelly said in the statement. “Now that this matter is closed, we hope that all parties can focus on moving the school district forward in addressing the needs of students.”
The school district must pay $125,000 out of its general fund; insurers will pick up the remaining $2 million.
It remains to be seen how, exactly, this settlement will affect future rates for the cash-strapped school district.
The state Department of Education has deemed Harrisburg public schools in moderate distress for its $11.7 million budget shortfall and debt payments expected to increase 40 percent to $21 million within four years, according to estimates provided last month.
An updated projection will be presented Thursday night at a public meeting scheduled to start at 6 p.m. at Camp Curtin School, 2900 N. Sixth St.
Right to know
Once all parties have signed the settlement document, the agreement becomes a public record that is required to be released under Pennsylvania’s Right to Know law.
The district – or any public agency – could do so sooner, but does not have to, Pennsylvania Newspaper Association Media Counsel Melissa Melewsky said
“They’ve committed to a course of action, so I’d argue, if nothing is going to change, why not release it now?” Melewsky said.
In the meantime, PennLive.com has filed a Right-to-Know request for the agreement.