BURLINGTON — The Mount Ascutney School District board claims in new court documents that it followed the proper procedures when firing former Windsor School Principal Tiffany Riley last month.
In the document, filed Nov. 12 in the U.S. District Court in Burlington, the board responded to a lawsuit Riley brought against the district in July. The board’s filing denied her claims that board members had defamed her, violated her right to due process, and infringed on her right to free speech.
“(Riley) fails to state an unlawful policy or custom of the District or Board,” Pietro Lynn, an attorney for the school district, wrote in the response last week.
The lawsuit and board’s response stem from a June 10 post Riley put on Facebook, which board members, some community members and Superintendent David Baker deemed critical of the Black Lives Matter movement.
In the post Riley wrote, “I firmly believe Black Lives Matter, but I DO NOT agree with coercive measures taken to get this point across; some of which are falsified in an attempt to prove a point.”
She also wrote that “While I want to get behind BLM, I do not think people should be made to feel they have to choose black race over human race.”
After the post was shared on Facebook, sparking some outcry from community members, Baker asked Riley to remove it, calling the post “racist” and “inflammatory.” Riley initially disagreed, though she later deleted the post, according to her lawsuit. She posted another message on her Facebook page, acknowledging that she “unintentionally offended” people and saying she stands with the Black Lives Matter community in the “fight against racism.”
The board voted to put Riley on paid administrative leave the following day. Baker sent Riley a June 12 email saying the board saw “no path forward” for Riley and that the board would negotiate an “exit strategy” according to her lawsuit.
A month later, the board voted to fire Riley pending a termination hearing, which was held in September. The board released its final decision, officially terminating her on Oct. 14. She had been on paid leave up to that point.
At the core of the dispute between Riley and the board is a question of when Riley was fired. She claimed in her July lawsuit that Baker’s email, as well as the board’s actions and public statements, indicated that she had been terminated in June following her Facebook post.
“When a person is instructed to go negotiate a severance package that sounds like a termination,” her attorney, Bill Meub wrote in an email Thursday, adding that the board then “sought to justify” its actions by holding hearings and issuing an official decision in October.
“Everything that the Board has done including its October decision has been to spin and twist the evidence in order to protect itself from this lawsuit,” he wrote.
But board members disputed that idea, asserting in the November response that Riley was not officially terminated until last month and that Baker’s email did not say “that the Board voted to terminate her or that any alleged termination was due solely to her Facebook posts.”
The Oct. 14 decision detailed other reasons for firing Riley, including how she took a “defensive” position and declined to admit wrongdoing following her initial post, and how she declined to work with Baker to craft an appropriate apology for the post.
Riley has also claimed that the School Board never got her input on the issue before firing her — which Lynn also disputed in the filing last week.
In the response, Lynn wrote that board members invited Riley to a meeting on June 15 to explain the issue, but that she didn’t attend. A few days later, board members released a public statement saying that the board “had not made any decision concerning her termination,” according to the Nov. 12 response.
“(Riley) received all process due” during her firing, Meub wrote in the response.
Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.