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A former Portland Public Schools employee in the Office of School Modernization filed a lawsuit against the district on Wednesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court, alleging PPS eliminated her job in retaliation for her blowing the whistle on irregularities in a bond management contract now referred to the Oregon Department of Justice for criminal investigation.
Kiesha Locklear, a former senior project manager at the district who was the principal project leader on both the Jefferson High School modernization and the Center for Black Student Excellence project, alleges in her lawsuit that the elimination of her job was the result of her speaking out against the hiring of a Texas-based contractor, Procedeo, to manage billions of dollars in school construction bonds. In the fall of 2025, Locklear, at the time still employed by the district, made a highly unusual decision to warn the public at two board meetings of PPS’ engagement of Procedeo.
At a September 2025 board meeting, Locklear warned that Procedeo was making “impossible” promises when it said it could shave time and money off of the Jefferson project. In December, she termed the math behind the district’s $61.5 million contract with Procedeo “wild” and warned PPS was significantly overpaying the firm. Both of those concerns were among many that the district’s external bond auditor flagged in an explosive audit WW reported on last month.
Locklear’s lawsuit also makes reference to a decision from Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read’s office to refer an investigation his office began into PPS’ contract with Procedeo to the Oregon Department of Justice for a criminal investigation. Locklear, the lawsuit says, reported her concerns to Read’s office.
The lawsuit alleges that Locklear took her concerns to the district internally months ahead of her first School Board meeting appearance. Starting in June, it alleges Locklear “repeatedly reported serious concerns” about the district’s stewardship of public bond funds.
“As a result of Ms. Locklear’s reporting, PPS retaliated by adding Ms. Locklear’s job to a list of positions that were to be replaced by Procedeo LLC, culminating in the wrongful termination of Ms. Locklear’s employment on January 26, 2026,” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit asks for two claims of relief on the basis that PPS discriminated against Locklear for reporting “good faith information” she believed was evidence of violation of state law, and because she “opposed an unlawful practice.” It asks that a jury deliver an order reinstating her employment with PPS.
PPS spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit further alleges that after eliminating Locklear’s job, PPS offered her a payout in exchange for a release of her legal rights to be a whistleblower. Locklear instead submitted a tort claim notice on June 22.
“As a licensed Black female architect leading two landmark public projects within Oregon’s construction industry—a combination that is exceptionally rare—I brought irreplaceable expertise, community credibility, and institutional knowledge to these projects,” Locklear wrote in that notice. “PPS chose to eliminate that contribution.”
That tort claim notice, which Locklear’s attorney Michael Fuller shared with WW, outlined Locklear’s position that she had a right to speak out about Procedeo. That was especially important because, the tort claim alleges, PPS’ spending of public bond dollars on Procedeo is substantial and lacks a “meaningful mechanism” to evaluate what the district is receiving in return.
“Taxpayers and the Board are being asked to fund a contract that lacks basic accountability structures,” the tort claim notice reads. “This is not a procurement irregularity in isolation—it is a pattern that I identified, reported, and was terminated for raising.”
Locklear’s tort claim notice also emphasizes a point key to the findings of the external bond audit: that the district had, on Procedeo’s recommendation, terminated much of its in-house experience in favor of a firm that it had grown overreliant on since.
The tort claim alleges that, as PPS dissolved the Office of School Modernization and laid off about 15 staff, it failed to build a robust transition process and “handed operational control to a high-cost outside consultant.”
As one of the senior project managers on Jefferson, Locklear’s tort claim notice also emphasized the work that the district originally engaged Procedeo to undertake: exploring options to speed up the high school’s construction and potentially realize cost savings. (As WW has reported, the firm presented three options, all of which turned out to be unworkable.)
“Procedeo’s follow-up analysis confirmed what I had been saying for months: the OSM-led project team was, in fact, using the best available strategy,” the tort claim read. “Procedeo’s proposed alternatives were not achievable. The central rationale for their entire presence in Oregon, evaluating and improving the Jefferson project approach, proved to be a complete failure on their part.”
