KCPS worker fired in student attendance scandal sues district for race discrimination
A former Kansas City Public Schools employee accused of tampering with district attendance data is suing the district, claiming retaliation, wrongful termination and race and sex discrimination.
LaQuyn Collier says in a lawsuit filed recently in Jackson County Circuit Court that KCPS administrators retaliated against her and in December fired her after she told investigators that the practice of faking student attendance records was district-wide and initiated by district leaders at the time.
Collier is the third former KCPS employee implicated in the attendance fraud case to sue the district. Collier, who is Black, claims in her suit that while she and another employee accused of inflating attendance were fired in 2019, another employee, who is white and was also linked to the fraud, was allowed to retain her job.
The suit says Collier was subjected to harassment and discrimination because she is a Black female. KCPS’s actions “were outrageous and showed evil motive,” the suit says. Because Collier “suffered economic loss, emotional distress and other damages,” she is seeking “back and front pay,” in an amount to be determined at trial.
Collier, who worked as a secretary at Central Middle School, was among seven employees accused by the district of falsifying student attendance data from 2014 to 2016. Two of them were fired, including Collier. The other, Albert Collins, is also suing the district for wrongful termination and race discrimination. A third employee connected with the attendance case resigned after he was passed over for a job he wanted with the district.
Sam Johnson, who blew the whistle on the attendance fraud, sued the district in April, claiming he was forced out of his job because he refused to falsify the data.
In November, Kansas City Public Schools officials revealed that employees had inflated attendance numbers so the district would score better on Missouri’s Annual Performance Review and regain state accreditation. The district has been unaccredited since 2011. Inability to meet state requirements for student attendance has been a factor.
The attendance was falsified before Superintendent Mark Bedell came to Kansas City in 2016. Steven Green, who was superintendent at the time, left Kansas City for a superintendent job in the Atlanta area.
KCPS officials say they learned about the falsified data from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in January 2019. A former employee had reported the fraud to the state education department.
Over the next few months, the district conducted an internal investigation and then hired a law firm to do a separate investigation. KCPS eventually was made to pay the state nearly $200,000 in funding it had wrongly collected. State funding to districts is based on per pupil daily attendance.
In February Collier told The Star that she and the others accused were only scapegoats who had followed orders — from the superintendent on down.
“I gave them exactly what they said they needed. And you terminate me for giving you exactly what I was directed to do,” Collier said.
She said her bosses told her and co-workers to bump up attendance numbers to meet certain state expectations. The suit says Collier was told “if numbers weren’t reached, the state was going to take over and everyone would lose their job.”
KCPS officials declined to discuss the lawsuit Wednesday, saying in a statement to The Star: “Kansas City Public Schools does not comment on pending or active litigation. We will present our case and share the facts in the courts as appropriate if it comes to that.”
