Highland Elementary principals on administrative leave pending investigation

By Randa Wag­ner –UPDATED

An inves­ti­ga­tion by the Mor­row County Sheriff’s Office regard­ing the alleged sex­ual mis­con­duct of a High­land ele­men­tary school stu­dent has resulted in High­land Ele­men­tary School’s prin­ci­pals being placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave.

Grades K-2 Prin­ci­pal Debra Knechtly and Grades 3–5 Prin­ci­pal Shawn Winkelfoos, “have tem­porar­ily been relieved of their duties while an inves­ti­ga­tion is con­ducted by the Mor­row County Sheriff’s Depart­ment,” stated Super­in­ten­dent Dr. Bill Dodds at the Nov. 13 High­land School Board meeting.

A press release from the sheriff’s office Nov. 14 reported an inci­dent of pos­si­ble sex­ual mis­con­duct by a stu­dent that occurred Octo­ber 19, and an inves­ti­ga­tion sug­gested proper pro­to­col (accord­ing to the Ohio Revised Code) for report­ing child abuse or neglect was not fol­lowed by the school staff.

“As a result, two ele­men­tary prin­ci­pals have been placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave for not imme­di­ately noti­fy­ing Children’s Ser­vices or law enforce­ment, as the statute man­dates,” the press release said.

In a state­ment read to the com­mu­nity Tues­day night, Supt. Dodds said, “the inves­ti­ga­tion does not involve any improper con­duct between school employ­ees and stu­dents, nor does it involve any improper con­duct between adults.”

Supt. Dodds and school board mem­bers would not reveal the details of the mat­ter out­right, since they are pro­hib­ited from dis­cussing the sub­ject while the inves­ti­ga­tion is pend­ing. Both prin­ci­pals will be out of the build­ing for an unde­ter­mined amount of time, Dodds said, and he will be the act­ing prin­ci­pal at the ele­men­tary school with the assis­tance of Mike Hoyng, assis­tant super­in­ten­dent, and Lynn Thomp­son, mid­dle school dean. 

The mat­ter has been handed over to the Mor­row County prosecutor’s office, and this story will be expanded upon in next week’s issue of the Sentinel.

This story was mod­i­fied at 9:30 a.m. Thurs­day, Novem­ber 15 because the con­ver­sa­tion from par­ents quoted from the school board meet­ing was not asso­ci­ated with the stu­dent involved in the Sheriff’s Office inves­ti­ga­tion. This clar­i­fi­ca­tion came to our atten­tion Thurs­day morn­ing and we apol­o­gize for the error.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Nov 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.