ADVERSE EMPLOYMENT ACTIONS AND PUBLIC SCHOOL ...

Case Year State Action PP Litigative Claim
Heutzenroeder v.
Mesa Co. Valley
School Dist.
Murphy v. City of
Aventura
2010 CO T S Heutzenroeder argued that her reassignment for
failed leadership was a constructive discharge
and her eventual termination for insubordination
violated her due process protections and was a
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breach of her administrative contract.
2010 FL T S Murphy alleged that her termination was
retaliation for her sexual harassment claims
against her supervisor not for failed leadership
for failure to abide by enrollment policies,
accepting bribes, and funding misappropriation.
Table 30 presented 41 cases, 33% of the entire data sample, where the overarching theme
was failed leadership in some capacity. For the sake of the research study, the researcher
assigned various behaviors to the category of failed leadership, and some cases appeared in
multiple categories of failed leadership; some of those behaviors were as follows: negligence
which was identified in 14 cases (14), unsatisfactory performance (14), interpersonal strife (14),
insubordination (7), and incompetence (6). It is worth noting that all of these behaviors led to
unsatisfactory performance on a strong enough level to warrant employment action, but the
researcher identified unsatisfactory performance as a category for those administrators who
failed to meet requirements but were not accused of insubordination, incompetence, and so on.
Their performance was simply unsatisfactory. Moreover, some of the specific behaviors gathered
from the briefs were mismanagement of funds, unprofessional dialogue, and personal threats,
among others. Negligence was a strong issue in cases that were classified under failed leadership.
The cases that contained counts of negligence can be seen in Table 31 below.