Suspended school employee resigns, position eliminated
A suspended human resources officer for Oklahoma City Public Schools has resigned and his position is being eliminated by the district, according to Superintendent Aurora Lora.
Director of Employee Engagement Shane Keenan was suspended with pay Dec. 4 while the district investigated undisclosed allegations.
“The district is eliminating the position of director of employee engagement effective Feb. 28, 2018, and Shane Keenan has resigned effective the same date due to the elimination of his position,” Lora announced Monday night during a work session of the school board.
Lora said the district’s employee engagement team will be “rebranded” as “talent management,” and employee investigative efforts will be handled by “the new HR solutions team.”
The superintendent announced that Carolyn Gray will serve as director of the new team.
Gray, an 8-year district employee, will be responsible for “establishing a new customer-focused team whose primary function will be to deliver high quality, timely support to HR customers,” Lora said.
Additionally, Gray will provide oversight of other divisions within the district’s human resources department, Lora said.
“By moving toward a matrixed structure, we will continue to bolster the highly productive communication and collaboration that is already occurring across our various HR teams,” she said.
As employee engagement director, Keenan was a member of the district’s human resources leadership team. He was responsible for providing guidance on HR programs and supervision of various department processes, including hiring.
Oklahoma City Public Schools, the state’s largest district, employs about 4,700 people. About half that number are teachers.
Keenan was responsible for leading and directing the employee relations, accreditation, onboarding and employee training and development functions of the HR Department.
Keenan oversaw about a dozen department workers. He was supervised by Janis Perrault, the district’s chief human resources officer.
A district spokeswoman said Tuesday she could not comment on the nature of the allegations or the results of the investigation because of personnel issues.