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Eastside Memorial Teachers Organize Against Principal

Hallway at Eastside Memorial High School
Photo by Nathan Bernier for KUT News
An empty hallway at Eastside Memorial High. Teachers in the Global Tech High on the campus have filed a group grievance against their principal.

Austin School Trustees are holding a special meeting tonight to discuss a personnel matter that pits some teachers at Eastside Global Tech High against the school's principal.

The hearing is related to a "Level IV Employee Group Grievance of Eastside Memorial Global Tech Teachers." It is scheduled to last 70 minutes and will be held in closed session. Austin ISD says a Level IV Grievance means the complaint has escalated to the school board.

Education Austin says it won't disclose the nature of grievance until "probably after" tonight's closed door hearing.

"We want to wait until after we've had a chance to present to the district," Education Austin co-president Rae Nwosu said. "We don't want this to be where the school board members hear about this in the media before they get to hear the case."

KUT News has filed an Open Records Request with the district seeking information about the hearing. But it has ten business days to respond.

Eastside Memorial Global Tech High School was one of two campuses opened on the grounds of what used to be known as Johnston High School. The state ordered the school closed in 2008 because it failed to meet academic accountability standards for five years in a row. Johnston was among the first schools in the state to be shut under the high stakes accountability law.

Last year, Global Tech High scored an academic ranking of "acceptable". The other school on the campus, Green Tech High, was the only school in the district to be ranked "academically unacceptable."

Nathan Bernier is the transportation reporter at KUT. He covers the big projects that are reshaping how we get around Austin, like the I-35 overhaul, the airport's rapid growth and the multibillion dollar transit expansion Project Connect. He also focuses on the daily changes that affect how we walk, bike and drive around the city. Got a tip? Email him at nbernier@kut.org. Follow him on Twitter @KUTnathan.