Breaking News
Education

Motion to dismiss filed in Marion BOE lawsuit

By JIM BISSETT 2 min read
Photo courtesy of Marion County Schools Marion Schools Superintendent Donna Heston, far left, helps preside over a Board of Education meeting joined by members James Saunders, to her immediate right, Kevin Rogers, then President George Boylyes, Donna Costello and Tom Dragich. The meeting occurred in the days after the district and BOE came under state review.

FAIRMONT - Attorneys for both sides in the case of Donna Heston versus the Marion County Board of Education will sit down Oct. 29 for a planning meeting to explore what might happen should such a case go to trial.

In August, Heston, the current superintendent of Marion County Schools, leveled a lawsuit against BOE members James Saunders, Donna Costello and Kevin Rogers - and charged she was being persecuted by the trio over allegations of a same-sex relationship between her and another district employee.

Said employee, human resources administrative assistant Kristen DeVaul, also brought her own suit.

Both women have repeatedly denied the allegations.

Lawyers for Saunders, Costello and Rogers in recent days, however, have filed a motion to dismiss the case altogether.

Their clients, they said, were simply obligated to look into the claims.

That's for the protection of both Marion Schools and its BOE, attorney Thomas Buck wrote in the 14-page document he filed Sept. 24 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia.

"A legal dispute could arise alleging sexual harassment because a board superintendent was having a romantic relationship with a subordinate administrative assistant," the motion reads.

"As such, the subject rumors had the potential to create a separate sexual harassment claim if they ended up being true. The board members were correct in investigating the issue."

In her suit, Heston, though, alleges she and DeVaul were the center of an investigation fueled by rumors and nothing else.

Heston is currently working out a one-year contract, which expires at the end of June.

That's despite a positive evaluation awarded to her weeks before.

Meanwhile, the ongoing acrimony prompted the state Department of Education to appoint a liaison to oversee a "plan of corrective action" to mend the rift while both parties now await their potential day in court.

A deadline for discovery - the exchange of documents and witness information for such a proceeding - is Nov. 30.

Starting at /week.