State schools Superintendent Diane Douglas will once again have to decide between conciliation and conflict after the State Board of Education rejected the conditions she set for two board employees to return to work.

Douglas’ attorney informed the board that she would allow Christine Thompson, executive director of the Board of Education, and Sabrina Vazquez, the assistant executive director, back to their offices at the Arizona Department of Education, but that they must report directly to the superintendent, among other requirements.

In a response delivered Tuesday evening, attorney Mary O’Grady, who represents the board, told Douglas attorney Steve Tully that the board has concerns with Douglas’ requests of the two employees. She emphasized that Thompson and Vazquez work for the board and that Douglas cannot direct their work in a way that undermines the board’s duties and authority.

“Just as you noted that you will oppose efforts to undermine the Superintendent’s statutory authority, the Board will also oppose efforts to undermine its authority or any failure to adhere to the Superintendent’s responsibilities to implement the policies established by the board,” O’Grady wrote.

O’Grady emphatically rejected Douglas’ insistence that Thompson and Vazquez must report directly to her.

“The Feb. 16 letter asserts that Ms. Thompson and Ms. Vazquez ‘report to Superintendent Douglas.’ No, they don’t,” O’Grady said, referencing Tully’s letter to her on Monday.

The board’s attorney noted that organizational chart on the Department of Education’s own website shows that Thompson and Vazquez do not report directly to Douglas. According to the chart, the two report to the board.

If Thompson and Vazquez refuse to comply with Douglas’ conditions, Douglas will be forced to either retreat from her requirements or reignite the conflict by attempting to impose the conditions on them. A Douglas spokeswoman could not immediately be reached for a response to O’Grady’s letter.

Tully told O’Grady in his Feb. 16 letter that Thompson and Vazquez must account for their work days in their reports to Douglas, including start and stop times; provide specific details of their scheduled meetings. They must notify the department of any vacation and sick days they take, Tully said, and get approval for all trips, conferences and expenses.

Douglas’ attorney also said Thompson and Vazquez would be allowed to interact with socially with other employees of the department, but that they would be barred from discussing policy issues or making direct requests of them. Tully said any requests of non-board employees at the department must be routed through Michael Bradley, Douglas’ chief of staff.

O’Grady suggested that Thompson and Vazquez were being singled out for such treatment, and said they would be happy to comply only with the same accountability policies as other Department of Education employees.

“Given the Superintendent’s expressed desire to deescalate the conflict she initiated when she purported to terminate Board staff, I will not view this as a threat of the bureaucratic version of ‘death by a thousand cuts,’” O’Grady wrote. “If there are new Department-wide procedures on these matters, it would be helpful to know what they are.”

O’Grady also wrote that Thompson and Vaquez will make reasonable efforts to send requests for other employees to Bradley, Douglas cannot impose an “arbitrary” prohibition on discussing policy with them, which the attorney said would violate their free speech rights. At times, she said, the duo must also speak with other department employees in the course of their jobs. An inability to do so, or a requirement that she forward all such requests through Bradley, would impede their ability to do their duties, the attorney said.

“This is not workable or justifiable,” O’Grady wrote.

O’Grady noted that the Board of Education is statutorily authorized to set education policy, and said state law requires the superintendent of public instruction to execute that policy.

Douglas attempted to fire Thompson and Vaquez on Feb. 11, and indicated that her displeasure with them stemmed from their support for Common Core, K-12 educational standards adopted by the board in 2010. The following day, Gov. Doug Ducey declared that only the board had the authority to fire the two employees, and the board responded by ordering Douglas to allow the two back into their offices and to restore their access to their official email accounts, computer equipment, phones and documents.

State statute stipulates that the Board of Education shall “employ staff on the recommendation of the superintendent of public instruction.” Douglas interprets that as granting hiring and firing authority over board employees to her, while the board and the Governor’s Office say the authority rests with the board. Douglas also cited another statute stating that the superintendent shall “direct the work of all employees of the board who shall be employees of the department of education.”

The Ducey administration cited a 1985 attorney general’s opinion that said the Board of Education has the authority to hire and fire its employees.

After Thompson and Vazquez returned to work, Douglas reiterated her desire for the Legislature to pass a bill clarifying that the Board of Education has authority over its staff. In her letter to Tully, O’Grady said that if Douglas wants to change the relationship between the superintendent and board staff, she should seek to address it through her proposed legislation.

Ducey’s comment that only the board has hiring and firing authority over its employees prompted an inflammatory attack from Douglas in which she accused the governor of surrounding himself with a “shadow faction” of charter school operators and Common Core supporters. Douglas accused Ducey of seeking to lower student test scores so he can divert more students from district schools into charters in order to profit their operators, and of depriving district schools of hundreds of millions of dollars so he can give tax cuts to his “corporate cronies.”