Petition calls on Olathe school board to remove administrator who harassed co-worker
Six hundred people signed a petition submitted to Olathe Public Schools this week that calls for the board of education and Superintendent Brent Yeager to remove a school administrator who was found last year to have committed sexual harassment.
Rich Wilson, the district’s director of curriculum and assessment, has at least three letters of reprimand in his personnel file, according to internal district documents obtained by The Star. The disciplinary actions all stemmed from what a previous superintendent found was Wilson’s inappropriate behavior toward three female co-workers who filed formal complaints against him a year ago.
One of those complaints fit the district’s definition of sexual harassment. But former superintendent John Allison also faulted Wilson’s interactions with the other two women and suggested he be reprimanded in those cases, as well, and take sensitivity training.
Allison found credible the women’s accusations that Wilson made inappropriate remarks about their physiques and “eyeballed” them, as one of them described his habit of looking them up and down.
But the district did not reassign him and he continued working closely with two of the women this school year.
The other woman, Tina Ellsworth, left her job at the district last summer. She started an online petition in January because she felt it was wrong that her former co-workers had to continue working with Wilson after he was disciplined. One of them, who had an office next door to Wilson, is set to lose her job for what she and the others believe is retaliation for not letting the matter drop.
“Today, a petition of approximately 600 signatures went to the BOE,” Ellsworth, the district’s former social studies coordinator, announced on her Facebook page Tuesday night. “Apparently the Supt is too much of a coward to do the right thing.
“Calling on the board to force his hand.
“Then the BOE needs to determine if this is who you want in a Supt. Someone who offers hush money…”
That last remark refers to a settlement agreement that the district offered the woman with the office next to Wilson’s.
The Star reported earlier this month that the district offered her a settlement worth nearly $200,000, if she would quit her job, refrain from any public discussion about her allegations against Wilson and promise not to sue Olathe Public Schools. Yeager had taken over as superintendent by that time.
When she refused, that woman was barred from district property, ordered to work from home for the remainder of the school year and told that her administrative job was being eliminated.
The moves came after Wilson filed a complaint against her, according to her attorney Mark Dugan, in which Wilson claimed she had “maliciously” accused him of harassing her by touching her on her upper thigh, calling her his “work wife,” and staring at her body.
Without naming Wilson, the petition calls on Yeager and the school board to “protect women by removing the person who has been found in violation of sexual harassment from his current position where he currently serves with and over the women who came forward.”
Further, it calls on Yeager and the board to honor a district policy that states discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual harassment not be tolerated, and finally it calls on the board “to ask very specific questions about allegations of retaliation against the accusers, and to work to protect women from retribution in any capacity.”
Wilson has declined comment. The district similarly refuses to discuss the harassment complaints, other than to say they were fully investigated and that the district considers the matters closed. The district also declined to discuss accusations of retaliation against the woman who is being forced to work from home and who The Star is not naming at her request.
“(She) is an employee of the district and, as a district, we are committed to protecting the privacy of all our employees,” district spokeswoman Becky Grubaugh said in a Feb. 9 email. “Although this may lead to incomplete information about the situation in question, we are not able to share more at this time.”
The district did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the petition that was delivered to the board of education.
Ellsworth said she hopes the petition will force the hand of the district’s leaders, who have so far been silent on the matter.
“Why are we telling our story publicly and asking for the public to come alongside us? Because justice hasn’t come from silence. We tried that. It didn’t work,” she said.
“Maybe if we speak up, we will see justice for every woman and girl in the district. We cannot just throw our hands up and accept the district’s actions and inaction. Time’s up.”
This story was originally published February 24, 2022 at 1:31 PM.
