The Maine Labor Relations Board says the Cumberland and North Yarmouth school district discriminated against a school therapist when it threatened to fire her after she involved a union rep in a dispute.

The MSAD 51 Education Association, the district’s teachers union, filed a complaint in November 2023, alleging the district discriminated against the therapist because she was on the bargaining team for the union. The dispute stems from the therapist’s concerns about her work schedule.

MSAD 51 Superintendent Jeff Porter said in an email that this decision comes as the school board has successfully reached a tentative labor agreement with the union. Teachers have been working without a contract since Aug. 31, when the previous contract expired. In early September, the school board finalized a contract with bus drivers, but things remained unresolved with teachers.

“This agreement is the result of nearly 11 months of hard work by the parties, and we believe that it will serve both teachers and the district well in the coming years,” Porter said.

But he also said it’s been a complicated year for labor relations, citing the state labor board’s decision against the district, and an arbitration matter that he said was resolved in the district’s favor.

“The district hopes that with a contract settlement on the horizon, we can resume a more collaborative working relationship with the teachers’ association,” he wrote. “As always, we value the trust and support of our school community and remain committed to advancing the mission that guides our work with students each day.”

According to the labor board’s Dec. 2 decision, the part-time occupational therapist had been employed by MSAD 51 for about 20 years and had consistently received positive performance reviews. She was also a member of the union’s bargaining unit.

For the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, she was working an almost full-time schedule and earned 80% of the salary of a full-time employee. But the employee, who is not named in the board’s decision, said she felt like her caseload was too large.

The district hired an additional therapist at the start of the 2022-23 school year and reduced some of her workload, but when that therapist resigned, an administrator set up a meeting to ask her to take on more cases. The woman brought a union representative with her to the January 2023 meeting.

The administrator reacted to that in an email after the meeting, writing, “You did not give me the courtesy of letting me know that you were asking union representation to attend that meeting which changed the dynamic of the meeting,” according to the decision.

The therapist filed a grievance in April 2023 about her ability to complete her work within scheduled hours, which worked its way up district leadership until it was rejected by the school board. The next school year, she met several times with an administrator to discuss schedule options, but the therapist expressed issues with each of the proposals and eventually complained that she was missing meetings with students as a result of their limitations.

In October, the district sent her a letter warning her that missing any more sessions could, “result in discipline, up to and including termination.” The union filed its official complaint on her behalf with the state labor board the following month.

A majority of the labor board concluded that the school district discriminated against the therapist in its Dec. 2 decision. It ordered the district to cease and desist any retaliation against employees for union involvement, and to remove the letter threatening termination from the therapist’s employee file.

“As is often the case, there is no direct evidence that the school’s action was motivated by the occupational therapist’s protected activity. However, a majority of the board finds sufficient circumstantial evidence that anti-union animus was a motivating factor in the school’s issuance of the Letter of Instruction,” the decision reads.

Representatives of the education association declined to answer questions on Thursday.