Education
CPS Board Approves $700K Settlement to Ex-Lincoln Park HS Officials
Lincoln Park High School (WTTW News)
Two former Lincoln Park High School administrators who were fired in 2020 and later sued Chicago Public Schools claiming they had been defamed by the district have agreed to a $700,000 settlement.
The Chicago Board of Education on Thursday voted to approve the settlement with the school’s former interim principal John Thuet and assistant principal Michelle Brumfield, more than five years after the pair was ousted amid an investigation into “multiple allegations of serious misconduct” involving the school’s boys basketball team.
The board voted 17-0 in favor of the settlement.
Both were placed on the school district’s “Do Not Hire” list following their termination — a designation that was lifted earlier this year. They will now each receive $350,000 through the settlement. Bill Choslovsky of the law firm Ginsberg Jacobs LLC represents Thuet and Brumfield and helped secure their settlement and remove their names from the “Do Not Hire” list.
Thuet previously told WTTW News that when he learned that a parent had information about potential misconduct involving students on a boys basketball trip, he contacted a CPS network chief to inform them of the allegations.
“We followed protocol,” Thuet said on a Feb. 27, 2020, episode of “Chicago Tonight.” “I constantly was in touch with the network. With the Office of Student Protections. With the Law Department, getting guidance on what to do on every step. We didn’t take any actions without consulting with them.”
Due to the investigation, CPS opted to suspend the boys basketball team’s season, which prompted a series of protests from students at the school, who wanted both Thuet and Brumfield reinstated and their basketball season restored.
Brumfield at the time said she had no idea why CPS had taken such harsh action against them.
“We simply just don’t know,” she said on the same “Chicago Tonight” episode. “We genuinely thought we were working hand-in-hand with OSP. … We took these allegations very seriously.”
An investigation by the school district’s Office of Inspector General — obtained and first reported on by WBEZ last year — revealed the investigation into Thuet and Brumfield had been influenced by a separate investigation undertaken by then-CPS Chief Title IX Officer Camie Pratt.
Aside from the investigation into the basketball program, Pratt and her deputy also questioned Lincoln Park school officials in an off-the-books investigation into their response to an allegation about a text exchange between a student — who was related to Pratt — and the girls basketball coach, WBEZ reported.
Pratt alleged that a “stray text” from the girls basketball coach to Pratt’s relative about practice somehow constituted “sexual misconduct.” According to the OIG’s report, Pratt’s conduct “jeopardized public trust in CPS” and its Office of Student Protections. She has since resigned from CPS.
