An Atlanta Public Schools administrator who led a team tasked with investigating workplace complaints has left amid troubles in that human resources department.
Toni Sellers-Pitts resigned her post as executive director of employee relations effective Sept. 16. Her departure comes during a period of turmoil and turnover, according to documents recently obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution through an open records request.
Just days before Sellers-Pitts resigned, her boss told Superintendent Lisa Herring in a memo that she had “received numerous complaints from principals, staff and employees within the employee relations department regarding Toni Sellers-Pitts.” In that memo, Chief Human Resources Officer Nicole Lawson recommended terminating Sellers-Pitts, citing concerns about the handling of employee investigations, “poor communication” and “poor workplace culture.”
Sellers-Pitts said in a 80-minute interview with the AJC she worked hard since her hiring in March 2021 to meet the demanding workload in the middle of the pandemic while feeling overwhelmed and unsupported. She said staffers had grown “disgruntled” and didn’t get along.
She said she took on more responsibilities, such as overseeing the district’s absence management unit that responded when staffers were out due to COVID-19 or other reasons, while also dealing with a backlog of employee complaints that her office needed to investigate.
“I felt like the entire time I was operating with my hand behind my back because I was never fully staffed but I was supposed to function as a fully staffed department and the complaints kept coming,” she said.
Sellers-Pitts said she didn’t get a chance to defend herself against the allegations. She said she was called into a conference room in mid-September and was told that the superintendent had lost faith in her. When APS offered her the option to resign, she took it.
Sellers-Pitts’ salary was $133,708 last school year, records show.
In a statement, APS acknowledged that the employee relations department “has experienced turnover and disruptions.”
“Chief Lawson has addressed the issues within employee relations, and APS is in the midst of rebuilding this department, as well as reviewing its policies and procedures to produce the best, most efficient, and most effective personnel services for our employees and stakeholders,” APS said.
Lawson is looking for an outside entity to assess key areas within human resources, which consists of 57 employees in three departments, including employee relations, APS said. Lawson is leading the employee relations team while a search takes place to find the next executive director.
The shakeup comes amid a separate, internal APS review that has embroiled another human resources leader. Lenora Patterson, director of leadership staffing, was placed on paid leave late last month while the district looked into the principal hiring process for a new Midtown elementary school.
Additionally, two other senior administrators — Chief of Schools Anita Williams and Associate Superintendent Paul Brown — were also put on leave after parents questioned how the district vetted the chosen principal. Herring withdrew the principal recommendation shortly after it was announced.
In the Sellers-Pitts matter, Lawson expressed concern about a decision to not place an educator on leave during an investigation into an “egregious allegation.” The memo did not name the educator or detail the allegation, but Lawson wrote that “Failure to place this employee on administrative leave potentially made other students vulnerable and put them in harm’s way.”
Sellers-Pitts said there were several reasons why she didn’t send that educator home. She said a prior complaint against the educator could not be corroborated after those involved denied an allegation made anonymously. She said the second instance involved similar allegations that something had happened between that same educator and the individual from the prior investigation, but the individual was no longer in APS’ jurisdiction. The district said the employee under investigation has since died.
Sellers-Pitts also pushed back on criticisms that key deadlines for employee investigations were missed and offered context about concerns that the team had twice suffered mass resignations. Lawson wrote that employee turnover “has had a significant impact on service delivery” and that some staffers “had profound performance issues and eventually resigned or were dismissed in less than a year.”
“They all have cited poor management of Toni Sellers-Pitts as their reason for resignation or dismissal,” Lawson wrote.
Sellers-Pitts said in addition to staff shortages, the pace of the team’s work sometimes slowed because she had to edit and rework reports turned in by investigators whose “writing was subpar.” She said completed reports also sat on the desk of higher-ups, awaiting their signatures.
She acknowledged problems with the workplace culture, but said bad hires and conflicts among her staffers strained the environment.
APS said completing a comprehensive assessment of human resources will help the district “identify how well current practices are aligned with best practices.” With those findings, APS will revamp systems “where needed to support equitable HR practices.”
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