Hundreds of former employees of Arizona’s second-largest district were blacklisted from ever working for the system again, despite never having serious disciplinary issues on their employment records.
It’s unclear why many of the ex-workers for the Tucson district were ever put on a long-rumored blacklist or who put them on it. Many of the former employees were never told they were blacklisted.
District officials say the former employees were put on the blacklist because of “personality clashes” with supervisors, poor evaluation scores, and using all their vacation time. None of those infractions are grounds for firing or blacklisting.
The district recently acknowledged for the first time that it kept the secret list that dated back two decades and contained as many as 1,400 entries. An audit of the list found only 516 people had been justifiably blacklisted.
