Former principal loses federal lawsuit against Wichita school district over retirement

A federal judge has ruled against a former Wichita public school principal who sued the school district, saying she was unjustly pressured to retire amid accusations of state testing improprieties.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree ordered last week that Pam Stead, former Enterprise Elementary principal, recover nothing from USD 259 and that her lawsuit alleging defamation, false representation, negligence, deprivation of due process and other harms be dismissed. She was seeking in excess of $75,000 in damages.

Asked for comment, Stead’s attorney, Kathy Webb, said only that she and Stead are thinking about appealing Crabtree’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.

Richard James, attorney for the school district, said he and his clients “are very pleased with the decision.”

“It is unfortunate that this isolated incident occurred, but we are thankful for the opinion of the Court,” James said in an e-mailed statement.

“Now the Wichita Public Schools can focus on its mission of educating students.”

Stead retired in April 2012 shortly before district officials announced that “protocol wasn’t followed” when 18 Enterprise students’ state assessment tests were re-activated and answers changed after tests had been completed and submitted.

Stead, in her lawsuit, cited student complaints about construction noise, inadequate testing instruction, illness, behavioral issues and a lack of required special-education accommodations during testing as reasons for re-activating the assessments.

Testing rules and procedures say assessments can be re-activated only in rare circumstances, such as where parts of an exam are incomplete due to power failures, lost Internet connections and insufficient time.

Stead argued in her suit that her disciplinary conference with school officials was “fraught with errors and misstatements” and that statements superintendent John Allison and a school board member made to news media after her departure smeared her reputation.

But the judge sided with the school district, saying in his ruling that Stead was not entitled to certain due process procedures because she retired before they could be invoked. He also said that her defamation claims were inactionable because statements she said were injurious did not refer to her or were true.

Stead was a 27-year veteran of the Wichita school district when she retired. She is now principal of St. Anne’s Catholic School in Wichita, which serves pre-schoolers through eighth-graders.

Enterprise Elementary is near I-235 and MacArthur in south Wichita.

This story was originally published March 17, 2015 at 6:52 PM with the headline "Former principal loses federal lawsuit against Wichita school district over retirement."