By Staff
Cry foul and seek $10,000 each
By CLAUD HODGES
Senior Reporter
Two Beaufort County Schools teachers filed suit Wednesday in Beaufort County Superior Court against the Beaufort County Board of Education, the board’s vice chairman and a former principal.
Theresa L. Oakey and Paula Willey are suing the Beaufort County Board of Education, board Vice-Chairman Mac Hodges and Doris Brown, a former principal at Eastern Elementary School in Washington.
The plaintiffs contend that they were transferred from their teaching positions at Eastern Elementary School primarily due to circumstances surrounding the use of reading programs used in the school.
Oakey and Willey also charge that the school board illegally transferred them because the transfers were not recommended by the superintendent.
Oakey, who had taught at Eastern for 11 years, was transferred to John Cotten Tayloe Elementary School in Washington, before the start of the 2007-2008 school year.
Willey, who had taught at Eastern for 23 years, was transferred to Chocowinity Elementary School, before the start of the 2007-2008 school year.
The suit charges that Brown pushed for the Reading First program to be used instead of the Reading Recovery program, which was being used in the school.
The suit goes on to say that during that time Brown was seeking employment at the N.C. Department of Public Instruction in the Reading First program, within which Hodges’ wife, Meta Phelps-Hodges, is section chief of the Reading First program.
According to the suit, Brown and Hodges sought and secured both Oakey’s and Willey’s transfers from their employment at Eastern Elementary School in retaliation for Oakey’s and Willey’s raising questions about Brown’s failures to follow state law in making changes at the school.
The suit also claims that the transfers of Oakey and Willey “were arbitrary, irrational and motivated by the ill-will of defendants Hodges and Brown and then ratified by the Board, all in violation of each plaintiff’s right to equal protection of the laws.”
Also according to the suit, Oakey and Willey charge that the actions of Brown and Hodges “were intentional and deliberate and exhibited a willful and wanton disregard for the rights” of Oakey and Willey.
Ferguson, Stein, Chambers, Gresham &Sumter, P.A., of Charlotte filed the suit for Oakey and Willey.