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Parents and 4K teacher criticize Sunnyside staff reassignments at Pulaski school board meeting
Summary
At the Pulaski Community School District board meeting, a Sunnyside 4K teacher and community members said a recent staff placement decision was handled poorly and contradicted claims of collaborative planning; no board action on the reassignment was recorded.
Ashley, a 4K teacher at Sunnyside Elementary School, told the Pulaski Community School District board on Monday that a recent staffing change would force her to "put my job ahead of my family," and disputed the district's explanation of why staff placements were changed.
The comment came during the board's citizens forum, where Christina Raddis, a Sunnyside parent and PTO volunteer, said the school and community would lose an "irreplaceable teacher" if the reassignment stands. "A huge part of the love my oldest boys have for school is because of the foundation of making school fun and the joy Ashley brought into this classroom," Raddis said.
The remarks followed an open-records exchange Ashley described in which the district had listed, among other reasons, persistent "struggles" among staff and concerns raised in a virtual meeting. Ashley said the district's account misrepresented her team's conversations and that the 4K team at Sunnyside had collaborated daily and trusted one another. "We all fully trust each other," she said.
Ashley said the district told staff there would be three 4K sections at Sunnyside next year and that all members of the team would still have positions, but that administrators nonetheless required interviews and reassigned staff in ways she called unnecessary. She read the district's explanation aloud and said it did not match her experience, adding that when she and colleagues raised concerns the response was, "you girls can tell that my decision has been made." She urged the board to reconsider the process.
Raddis told the board that Ashley "has simply gone above and beyond her teaching role in every way possible" and warned the district that losing teachers like her harms the school community and volunteer activities the PTO leads.
The board did not take formal action on the reassignment at the meeting. The comments were delivered during the citizens forum; no vote or directive related to Sunnyside staffing was recorded in the meeting minutes provided.
The superintendent and district staff were present during the forum and later continued with the published agenda. Ashley said she had filed an open-records request on April 15 and received the requested documents on April 30; those emails and the district's wording informed her remarks.
Board members did not vote on the placement or announce a new timeline for review. The public record in the meeting shows the item was discussed only during public comment and not acted upon during the session.
