Absent With Leave

[March 19th, 2008]

Seven months after what was supposed to be a temporary medical leave, Benson High School’s principal remains off the job and Portland Public Schools officials are keeping mum about her status, although they still pay her $9,000-a-month salary.

Today, two things about principal Christie Plinski’s departure concern some teachers and parents at Benson, where Plinski was a widely respected administrator: the timing and the duration of her leave.

Plinski’s exit occurred just two weeks before classes began last September. Her return date is indefinite.

“This school has gone so downhill without her,” says Anna Mueller, mother of a sophomore at Benson. “The school needs her back—months ago.”

Until now, all that PPS administrators have been willing to reveal about Plinski’s medical leave is that it was of her own choosing and stress-related. A review of disability claims with Oregon’s Workers’ Compensation Division supports that basic version of events surrounding Plinski, 57, who has served as Benson’s principal since 2001.

But three sources tell WW Plinski’s extended sick leave was not entirely voluntary, and their more detailed version of events casts a shadow on the school district’s treatment of an outspoken administrator.

About a month before her announced departure in August, Plinski alleged to district administrators that she had been harassed and intimidated by her supervisor from the central office, Steve Olczak. She also alleged that Olczak, a former Reynolds High School principal before coming to PPS in 2005, had discriminated against her because of her gender, the sources say.

“I can’t comment on personnel issues,” Olczak says.

Although extreme, Plinski’s allegations of duress, if true, would not present a completely isolated case.

For much of last year, before then-Superintendent Vicki Phillips left Oregon for a job with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PPS principals were under immense pressure to implement changes “Hurricane Vicki” was imposing without their input, other principals not including Plinski confirm.

Plinski, for her part, would not comment to WW on the reasons for her medical leave.

A July letter written by Plinski to Leslie Rennie-Hill, the director of high schools who is also Olczak’s boss, could shed light on those reasons. But Portland Public Schools’ general counsel Jollee Patterson has denied two public information requests from WW for the letter, citing the personal privacy of the letter’s subjects. Deputy Multnomah County District Attorney Charles French, asked by WW to intervene, ruled in favor of the district, saying there was no clear public interest in releasing the letter.

Meanwhile, Benson’s students, teachers and parents are facing an uncertain future as multiple changes to the city’s high schools lie ahead. New Superintendent Carole Smith has said reforming high schools is one of her “immediate priorities.”

But right now two interim principals are working part time to fill the gap at Benson created by Plinski’s leave. One of those part-time principals is Olczak. The other is Susan Schenk, a retired vice principal.

“We need a full-time principal who understands Benson,” says Don Levine, a Benson public health teacher who’s also chairman of the school’s site council.

Back in September, Levine and other Benson teachers crowded a School Board meeting to send that message. But the school remains in limbo today.

“We’re up in the air,” says electronics teacher Tim Hryciw. “We have no clue who will be our principal next year. We have 1,200 kids, 80-some staff members, and no one in charge.”

Cathy Skach, who teaches in the communications technology department, says Benson’s day-to-day operations have deteriorated without Plinski’s presence. She was a very popular principal, Skach says. “I have never felt more support from an administrator,” she says.

Benson is unique among PPS’s 10 high schools because it is the only one that does not automatically draw students from its surrounding neighborhood; students must apply through the district’s enrollment lottery. Also, it’s the only Portland high school focused on career and technical education.

In 2003, district officials and School Board members started tweaking school policies, which hurt Benson, teachers say.

They eliminated application requirements. They also shifted most of a $100,000 federal grant away from Benson, even though the grant for shop supplies was a lifeline for the tech school. Along the way, teachers say, Plinski argued to protect Benson’s programs. Often, teachers say, she was overruled.

Now teachers and parents worry the looming high-school reforms will further drain enrollment and resources at Benson, which offers advanced classes in graphic design, dentistry and construction.

“In a lot of ways, she was a stabilizing force for the school,” Hryciw says of Plinski. “She walked in the door and understood us from day one.”

Patterson says contents of the July letter are part of a pending disciplinary investigation. That’s news to Olczak, who says, “There is no disciplinary action that I know of involving me or Christie.”