Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for June 22, 2005 PROSPERITY FOR PISTOL-PACKING PRINCIPAL

She only wanted "to heighten discipline and improve teacher accountability"...

SCHOOL BOARD, TWO EX-ADMINISTRATORS SHARE DAMAGES

By Brandon Ortiz

LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER

The six-year saga of a Leestown Middle School principal who was fired after a loaded gun was found in her car ended yesterday with a bang.

A Fayette Circuit Court jury awarded $3.5 million in damages to Melinda Lewis Cobb last night in her lawsuit against the Fayette school board, former superintendent Peter Flynn and former director of middle schools Russell Behanan.

Nine of the 12 jurors -- the minimum needed for a verdict -- found that the school district violated the state's whistle-blower act and that Flynn abused his administrative powers trying to oust her. Ten jurors found that Behanan abused his administrative powers.

The two former administrators, who are no longer with the district, were penalized a combined $2 million in compensatory damages. Each of the three defendants was ordered to pay $500,000 in punitive damages.

Spokeswoman Lisa Deffendall said the school board plans to appeal the decision. She said an insurance policy covered the board's part of the damages, but referred questions about Flynn's and Behanan's share to them.

"It's disappointing that a principal could have brought a loaded gun on campus and admitted that students were exposed to that weapon and get this kind of result," Superintendent Stu Silberman said through the spokes-woman.

A teacher reported on March 12, 1999, that she saw Cobb carry a gun into school. On March 22, 1999, district law enforcement officials, acting on an anonymous tip, found a gun in Cobb's car at the school. She was fired two months later.

In scathing closing remarks yesterday in Fayette Circuit Court, Cobb's attorney J. Dale Golden said the alleged incident was a convenient excuse by her enemies to get her fired. He said parents and teachers at the middle school -- which he called "Sleazetown" -- were conspiring against her because she sought to heighten discipline and improve teacher accountability after being hired in 1997.

School officials knew teachers were plotting against her but refused to step in, he said. Golden also accused district officials of shredding personnel documents that put Cobb in a more favorable light.

"This is about power, this is about politics, this is about revenge," Golden said. "... We're talking about grown adults sitting down together behind closed doors plotting and planning to destroy somebody's life."

The school board's attorney said Cobb's troubles were of her own making. She can't blame Flynn or Behanan for keeping a gun in her glove box, Robert Chenoweth said. "The bottom line out of all this is that Mrs. Cobb is responsible for that gun," he said. "Nobody did that to her. She did it to herself."

No charges were ever filed for the March incident, but Cobb was suspended with pay. The incident became public after she filed a lawsuit against Behanan, the middle school director, in April 1999. The school board and Flynn were added to the suit later.

It was not until May 14, 1999, that Cobb was demoted to teacher and then fired after district law enforcement officials filed felony charges of possession of a weapon on school property.

The gun incident later led the state Education Professional Standards Board to revoke her license to be a principal.

A three-person tribunal -- made up of an administrator, a teacher and a community member from outside Fayette County -- reinstated Cobb as a teacher in September 1999, but suspended her without pay for two years. That triggered a lawsuit by the school board questioning the tribunal's ruling.

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled against the district last year.

The teacher, Jennifer Pack, who accused the principal of carrying a gun into the school, refused to testify in a preliminary hearing in June 1999. Golden said Pack could have faced charges for not disclosing her story earlier.

Cobb's charges were ultimately dismissed by a grand jury.

Golden said district officials were thirsty for revenge after Cobb notified the Office of Education Accountability of an administrator who allegedly falsified documents to obtain a child's confidential records.

She also questioned the school's policy over confiscated property to the Kentucky Department of Education Legal Services division, Golden said.

Chenoweth's closing statements tried to debunk Golden's claim that Cobb was punished for exposing wrongdoing.

He said Cobb barely made mention of the allegations in a response to questions from the Office of Education Accountability a month before the gun was found in her car. And Flynn and Behanan weren't even aware of the complaint, he said.

"You can't read these words on that page and come away with the belief that Melinda Cobb was blowing the whistle," Chenoweth said.