Morris’ now-public reprimand letter staying in Norwalk Public Schools file

NORWALK, Conn. — A written reprimand will stay in the personnel file of Norwalk Public Schools Human Relations Officer Bruce Morris, despite his full court press effort to have it removed.

Morris was reprimanded with an accusation that he had left Central Office in November without notifying an executive secretary, as mandated by Chief of School Operations Frank Costanzo, then new to the job. Morris filed a grievance; a hearing was held March 8, in which part of Morris’ complaint was that he felt he was being discriminated against because he is a state representative.

The Board of Education Negotiations and Personnel Committee on Monday issued a decision in a grievance filed by Morris: The letter reprimanding Morris will stand because it is not subject to the grievance process, as specified in his contract as a member of the Executive Support Group union (ESG).

“The union could try to take it to arbitration, but the arbitrators would be subject to the grievance limitation in the contract, too,” Committee Chairman Mike Lyons said in a late Monday email.

The March 8 committee meeting was scheduled as an executive session, yet one reporter was present along with about a dozen people, including the Rev. Ray Dancy, NAACP First Vice President Brenda Penn-Williams, the Rev. Lindsay Curtis and former BoE member Rosa Murray, according to a witness. Morris asked that the session be held in public, the witness said.

NancyOnNorwalk was not notified that anything more than an executive session would be held but obtained a recording.

This was a Level III appeal under the ESG contract; Morris had already appealed the letter – written by Costanzo – to Costanzo, then appealed it to Superintendent of Schools Steven Adamowski, who upheld the written reprimand but put what he called “minor revisions” as to specific facts into an amended letter as a matter of fairness.

This letter was the subject of the grievance.

Present to support Morris were David Hopp, president of ESG; and Paul Stringer, vice president of the ESG’s parent union, Connecticut Federation of School Administrators.

Morris, in the meeting, challenged numerous factual details of the incident as reported in the first letter; Adamowski told him he was missing the point.

“The point is that when any of our staff leave our office they need to tell the secretary where they are going,” Adamowski said, late in the meeting.

Morris said, earlier in the meeting, that he had been unaware there was a problem until the day after the incident. The entire thing could have been avoided if Costanzo had simply followed due process and spoken to him that day, he said.

The incident was on Nov. 25; Morris said he got a phone call from his granddaughter asking him to meet her at Brien McMahon High School.

“I did not just run out,” but stood at a secretary’s desk for 5 to 7 minutes trying to get her attention as she talked on the phone, Morris said.

Adamowski, later in the meeting, said there was “some disagreement as to how long” the secretary was on phone. Adamowski said he had informed Morris in his Level II hearing that he could have left a note or sent a text to notify the secretary.

The lack of notification became an issue when two parents came looking for Morris, saying they wanted to appeal their child’s 10-day suspension, in an account agreed to by everybody speaking.

They were mistaken, Morris said – he was the person in charge of the hearing they were appealing. He could not hear the appeal; that was Costanzo’s role, he said.

“I do the hearing, I don’t do the appeal of that hearing,” Morris said.

Morris said that, in his 17 or 18 years as a schools employee, he had never been written up for anything. He couldn’t recall anyone ever being written up, except for members of the custodial union.

“Is Bruce Morris the first person to ever be disciplined for this?” he asked.

Morris questioned if other higher level employees were following Costanzo’s new protocol as of Nov. 25.

He said there is no written protocol but that he would not challenge the need for one.

“I certainly would challenge whether I would be singled out to follow that protocol when others are not,” Morris said. “I would challenge whether I would be the person who would have to do this because there have been times that I have had to raise the issue, that I should not be singled out even outside my occupational relationship, as relates to my position as state legislator, that I am not discriminated against or treated any differently than any other similarly situated staff.”

“It’s a reasonable work rule for everyone to follow, from my office on down,” Adamowski said later.

Morris had met with Costanzo days before the incident and been advised of the protocol one on one, as were other administrators, the superintendent said. “These expectations were recently outlined verbally,” he said, dismissing the assertion that Costanzo should have spoken to Morris when he had been discovered missing.

“There is difference of opinion between Mr. Costanzo and I about how and when I was told about these norms and what exactly the norms were,” Morris said.

During their meeting, Costanzo said he “had been told there had been problems with me,” Morris said. “… I could be interpreting it wrong or whatever, but I certainly walked away (from the meeting) with a feeling of, ‘Why would you set a policy for me based on what someone told you?’”

Then-Superintendent Manny Rivera said in 2014 that he had requested Morris keep a log of his comings and goings due to Morris’ duties as a state representative. Morris had not complied, former Superintendent of Schools James Connelly said in June 2015.

There has never been a problem of staff members not knowing where he is, Morris said. Everyone knows that if they dial his office phone, the call automatically goes to his cell phone, and he is available 24/7, unlike other employees, he said.

“Pat Rivera must be the only person that did not have Mr. Morris’ cell phone number, because she did not know how to reach him,” Adamowski said.

Rivera “knows my number very well and calls me long before this incident,” Morris said. If the statement were true that people had tried to call him but not been able to reach him, he would agree there is a problem, he said, but, “that is not what happened.”

The committee obtained legal advice from its attorney, Tom Mooney, before rendering a decision. An excerpt from Mooney’s letter:

“The letter in question, both in its original version and as revised, is clearly a written warning. As such, the contract expressly excludes this letter from grievance review. Accordingly, the revisions to the letter already made at Mr. Morris’ request may be considered a courtesy to him, and the contract does not otherwise provide for further review through the grievance procedure of the letter dated November 25, 2015 (and revised February 19, 2016).”

In Lyons’ phrasing:

“The Committee has concluded that this matter is not subject to the grievance provisions of the contract (which excludes from matters which can be appealed through the grievance process ‘verbal and written warnings’). Since a written warning is the only action in dispute in this matter, it falls within that exclusion.

“Accordingly, as this matter is not subject to the grievance process, the Committee cannot take any action on the matter, and will consider the matter closed.”

“I know that Dr. Adamowski says there are different options that can be followed with state legislators who are also local school employees,” Lyons said in a late Monday email to NancyOnNorwalk. “He had three legislators working for him while he was superintendent in Hartford, so he’s very familiar with the process.  They are required to put in all their local hours, with some flexibility.”

Morris Grievance Decision