Dr. Jeff Moorhouse, who is retiring as Kingsport City Schools superintendent Monday, Oct. 31, 2022, poses for a photo during a retirement reception in his honor Tuesday, Oct. 25.
Dr. Jeff Moorhouse, who is retiring as Kingsport City Schools superintendent Monday, Oct. 31, 2022, poses for a photo during a retirement reception in his honor Tuesday, Oct. 25.
It was filed Friday against Kingsport City Schools and individuals employed by KCS.
The suit is against KCS doing business as the city Board of Education, former Superintendent Jeff Moorhouse, soon-to-be former Johnson Elementary School Principal Stacy Edwards and Chief Human Resource Officer Jennifer Guthrie.
Process notification of the lawsuit is to be served on the above-named individuals plus school board President Melissa Woods.
The 20-page lawsuit filed Friday in Greeneville federal court seeks a jury trial and comes after a letter from the county grand jury that indicted the teacher blasted how the school system handled allegations against Carpenter.
“The families are grateful for the work of the district attorney’s office relating to the teacher,†Justin Gilbert, one of the attorneys who filed the suit on behalf of four sets of John and Jane Doe parents, wrote in an emailed statement in response for a request for comment Friday afternoon.
“For school system accountability, that takes a civil lawsuit. Hopefully, out of so much pain there can be system changes made when it comes to swiftly reporting child abuse and neglect,†Gilbert said.
KCS declined comment.
“Kingsport City Schools will not comment on pending litigation,†Assistant Superintendent of Schools and KCS spokesman Andy True said Friday afternoon.
The lawsuit also seeks a ruling that the defendants broke federal law, as well as seeks injunctive relief including training of personnel in report child abuse against disabled students, unspecified compensatory damages for physical harm, psychological harm, mental injury, pain, anguish and loss of dignity, as well as post and/or future medical or psychological expenses.
In addition, the lawsuit seeks punitive damages against individual defenses against individual defendants, as well as attorneys’ fees, costs, expenses and “any further just relief.â€
BACKGROUND
The lawsuit was filed after the May Sullivan County grand jury indictment of KCS pre-K special education teacher Carpenter on 20 counts of child abuse against 10 students at Johnson Elementary School. That was where Carpenter taught pre-K students after the initial abuse allegations emerged during her time at the Palmer Early Learning Center.
“The families are grateful for the work of the district attorney’s office relating to the teacher. For school system accountability, that takes a civil lawsuit. Hopefully, out of so much pain there can be system changes made when it comes to swiftly reporting child abuse and neglect.â€
Edwards, who is leaving KCS June 30 after a 25-year career to become an assistant professor of education at Milligan University, allegedly misled parents that Carpenter had never been accused of neglect when in fact she was suspended for it while at Palmer.
The lawsuit, which mentions abuse reports from aide Tiffany Clark and speech pathologist Hunter Leedy, is filed on behalf of parents of four of the alleged victims, represented by Chattanooga attorney Justin Gilbert of Chattanooga-based Gilbert Law PLLC and Jessica Salonus of Jackson-based The Salonus Firm PLC.
Carpenter is a tenured teacher.
“The leadership of Kingsport City Schools feared its own special education teacher, Michelle Carpenter, so much that it elevated her perceived ‘employment rights’ above and beyond her actions of committing child abuse or neglect to children, including plaintiffs, in KCS schools,†the lawsuit says.
“Witnessed by scores of personnel, across multiple years, multiple grades and against multiple pre-school children with special needs, KCS repeatedly failed to report Carpenter to authorities, gave intentionally misleading information to parents and gave ‘discipline’ so weak that it ensured a continuation of Carpenter’s abuse and neglect,†the lawsuit says.
Beyond the criminal charges, the civil lawsuit alleges “incompetence and intentional mishandles of child abuse and neglect.â€
The lawsuit alleges that after 2019-20 reports of abuse and neglect, Carpenter received a two-day suspension from KCS but the allegations were not reported to the Department of Children’s Serves as required by Tennessee law.
She allegedly used inappropriate language with 3-year-old students with special needs, grabbed them, jerked them, “swung a student by the armpits, roughly handled the students and spoke ill of their parents,†the lawsuit says.
District Attorney Barry Staubus in an October 2020 letter advised KCS the law had been amended and required report of child abuse suspension to DCS, law enforcement and the system’s child abuse coordinator.
A March 3, 2021, letter from Staubus called for a followup meeting about KCS not following the law, after which the lawsuit says the school system again failed to follow the law when new but similar allegations emerged against Carpenter.
The lawsuit says the second abuse allegations resulted in a three-day suspension and Carpenter’s move to D-B EXCEL. However, she never started that job and is suspended without pay.
Watch the ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ online and in print for further developments.
