Parents seek answers after Morgantown school admins put on leave

MORGANTOWN, W.Va (WDTV) - Parents are seeking answers after two administrators at a Morgantown school were place on leave.

The principal and vice principal at North Elementary School were placed on paid leave in February following what district officials are calling an “incident.”

A letter sent to parents by Mon County Schools Superintendent Dr. Eddie Campbell called what happened a “sensitive matter,” but no details about what happened have been publicly released.

It’s common for school districts to withhold information citing personnel issues, but parents like Autumn Wise want to know what might have happened to their children.

Wise’s son, who she says has autism, is a student at North Elementary.

“I want to know if my child was victimized or has seen someone else be victimized,” she said. “I’m not asking about any of your personnel. I want to know what happened to my kid. I don’t care by who, whatever, I want to know what has happened to him and what he’s seen. Period.”

Wise spoke at Tuesday night’s board of education meeting and demanded to know what led to the administrators being put on leave.

“What I have an issue with is the lack of transparency for us parents in that room who don’t know if something has happened to our child or they may have witnessed something happen to another child and the level of trauma it has caused them mentally,” she said.

Wise said her son hasn’t slept a full night in months.

She says she wants to know if he was somehow victimized or if he saw something traumatic happen to one of his classmates.

Despite repeated attempts to get answers from district officials like Campbell, she’s still in the dark, she said in the meeting

But BOE President Ron Lytle says the district has told Wise, and the other parents of the children involved, as much as they can.

That doesn’t seem to be enough for Wise, Lytle told 5 News.

“What she’s asking for is to see video and we’re working on, because it’s obviously a privacy issue with the rest of the kids, to get her into room where she can see that video where he kid was in the room,” he said.

Lytle said Wise’s “accusations” in the board meeting are not accurate. He said district staff have been working closely with parents.

“She has been informed by our staff the level of involvement her kid was exposed to,” he said. “Absolutely.”

Lytle said an independent investigation into what happened is underway and that it’s being done “by the book.”

“That didn’t get brushed under the table, none of that stuff did,” he said. “And we’re doing it in a very professional way.”

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