NEWARK, Calif. — The Newark Unified School District is settling a lawsuit with a former principal who says that the previous superintendent discriminated against her, possibly closing her school in retaliation.
During closed session on Thursday, Jan. 11, the district’s Board of Education unanimously approved a $300,000 settlement with Akilah Byrd, the former principal of Graham Elementary School, which was merged with another school in 2021. The district is expected to pay $75,000 of the total.
Byrd, who worked for the district between 2014 and 2021, filed a complaint against the district and former Superintendent Mark Triplett in 2023, contending that she faced harassment, intimidation and retaliation because of her race, disability and concerns about systemic racism. Those concerns included inequities in hiring and promotions, as well as inadequate communication about potential school closures to minority and English-learning families.
Triplett, who currently works for the San Lorenzo Unified School District, sent the East Bay Echo a brief statement through his attorneys stating he was pleased to see the allegations against him “dismissed entirely.”
“With regard to the District, I am sure it must be eager to refocus its attention on educating the students who are enrolled in its schools,” Triplett said.
According to the complaint
Byrd began working as a junior high school assistant principal with the district in 2014 and was promoted to elementary school principal in 2016, according to her Linkedin profile. The complaint states she received positive evaluations until Triplett assumed leadership in 2020, at which point her evaluations turned negative.
Triplett reportedly asked Byrd, “as the ‘only black school leader in the district,’” to advocate for an initiative called “Black Lives Matter in the Classroom,” which Byrd declined due to her lack of involvement in its planning.
“That seemed to make Mr. Triplett unhappy,” the complaint states.
Weeks later, Byrd was diagnosed with a disability and requested accommodations, but instead faced what the complaint described as worsening conduct and hostile behavior from Triplett. Byrd alleged she experienced differential treatment compared to other principals in the district.
“When (Byrd) expressed her concerns regarding systemic racial inequalities pertaining to her school community, Mr. Triplett devaluated, discounted and mischaracterized her opinions and stated the administrator meeting was not the space to vent and called her passive aggressive,” the complaint states.
On March 2, 2021, Byrd filed a complaint against Triplett stating she was facing discrimination, harassment and retaliation. Following this, Triplett reportedly retaliated against Byrd by merging Graham Elementary with another school, Snow Elementary School, and replacing her as principal. Byrd received a pink slip on March 10, 2021, stating there was no administrative position available for her.
According to the complaint, the district refused to offer Byrd vacant principal positions, even after she applied to one and was told on May 3, 2021, that she was the preferred candidate. The next day, Triplett and an assistant superintendent reportedly tried to pressure her not to attend future principal, professional development or school community meetings.
As the situation escalated, Byrd sought help from attorney Kate Starkebaum, the investigator with Kramer Workplace Investigations hired to conduct the district’s investigation. However, according to the complaint, no assistance was provided, and the harassment continued.
The complaint further states the district failed to investigate the situation within 60 calendar days as required, instead completing the investigation after Byrd’s employment ended. Upon starting her new job at the Alameda County Office of Education, Byrd was reportedly told “she could not speak to anyone in the NUSD even though working with them is part of (Byrd)’s job description.”
“Later, (Byrd) was informed that Mr. Triplett had called the Alameda COE and told them that they should not have hired (Byrd) without his permission and it was a conflict of interest, although no conflict existed,” the complaint states.
Byrd filed a charge of discrimination against Triplett and the district with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in May 2021 and was granted the right to sue them on Jan. 19, 2023, which she exercised in May.
The district’s investigation
On Sept. 26, 2022, Boardmember Aiden Hill shared partially redacted documents on Facebook in which he wrote that the board, with the exception of then-President Bowen Zhang, was not informed of the complaint against or the investigation into Triplett.
In a memo to Alameda County Superintendent of Schools L.K. Monroe dated April 18, 2022, Hill wrote that Zhang had a duty to call a special meeting to discuss the complaint “and take a majority vote regarding appropriate actions.”
“Instead, he himself took unilateral action and coordinated with temporary assistant superintendent of (human resources) Mike Martinez to hire a 3rd party firm (Kramer Workplace Investigations) to investigate this matter,” Hill wrote.
Zhang could not be reached for comment.
The board should have been overseeing the investigation, not one of Triplett’s subordinates, Hill wrote, adding that the contract for the investigation was neither approved by the board nor reported to the board at the mandated times to report contracts.
Hill wrote the first inkling he had that “something was amiss” was at a special board meeting in November 2021 when he noticed unexplained October payments to Kramer Workplace Investigations.
“When I asked what these payments were regarding, I was then told by Superintendent Triplett (who had been secretly under investigation) that this was a personnel matter,” Hill wrote, “and he could not disclose this information to me.”
Hill raised concerns about whether the district had “proper internal controls in place to prevent fraud” and requested documents surrounding the district’s procurement processes and procedures, which he said went ignored.
On Jan. 20, 2022, the district released the purchase order for Kramer Workplace Investigations, which Hill wrote was issued two days before the $23,000 in October payments were made, violating internal controls policies requiring approval before work commences.
“The District claimed this was the ‘contract’ tying to the payments, never disclosing the fact that the real contract from March of 2021 had not been disclosed (as required by law), helping to keep the true nature of the discrimination investigation concealed from the board,” Hill wrote.
Hill was able to get a copy of the contract from a private citizen who filed a public records request for it. He pointed to a section of the contract stating the district would legally defend Kramer Workplace Investigations at its own expense if any legal claims arose from the investigation.
“As a Board Member, I would have never agreed to these terms as they would undermine our ability to trust the investigation findings (particularly if the investigation is being managed by direct reports to the subject of the investigation),” Hill wrote.
Zhang eventually disclosed to the board that he had been notified about the complaint and had instructed Martinez to coordinate the investigation, Hill wrote. After Martinez left the district, Nicole Pierce-Davis, the newly hired assistant superintendent of educational services and a former colleague of Triplett’s at Oakland Unified, was selected to coordinate the investigation, Hill wrote.
Pierce-Davis’s resignation was announced at the Feb. 6 school board meeting.
The district ended up parting ways with Triplett about a year ago when the makeup of the school board changed. He was dismissed by the board on a 3-2 vote.
Sonia Waraich can be reached at 510-952-7455.
