Highlands asks federal court to throw out former principal's lawsuit

Highlands School District asked a federal court Monday to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a former principal claiming the district and its superintendent retaliated against her for taking unpaid leave and dating a former teacher.

In a 29-page filing in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, the school district said it doesn’t believe former Highlands Early Childhood Center Principal Heather Bigney is entitled to any damages.

Charles Steele, one of Bigney’s attorneys, was not able to comment on the district’s answer Tuesday. He said they had just received the district’s answer and he had not yet spoken with Bigney.

Bigney resigned Oct. 21, the same day she filed her lawsuit claiming Superintendent Monique Mawhinney discriminated against her and threatened to fire her after she took time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

The district’s filing disputed many of the claims made by Bigney and raised its own defenses, including that some or all of the damages she said she suffered resulted from her own conduct and actions.

The district also argued that actions taken regarding Bigney’s employment “were based on legitimate, neutral and nondiscriminatory reasons.”

Bigney’s lawsuit alleges Mawhinney began criticizing and disciplining her after Bigney started dating Highlands fourth-grade teacher Jason Smith. He also resigned and has a separate federal lawsuit against the district alleging retaliation for using his Family and Medical Leave Act rights.

Smith’s case has been referred to mediation, which according to court records is to be completed by Feb. 3. Smith and the district are each paying half of the costs of the mediation.

In its response to Bigney’s lawsuit, the district admitted Mawhinney may have referred to employees’ attendance and absenteeism issues but denies that she mentioned family and medical leave or that she expressed hostility about any employee’s leave status.

The district also admitted Mawhinney called Bigney into her office and spoke with Bigney about her relationship with Smith and photos posted on social media but disputed the meeting being characterized as an “interrogation.”

The district said Mawhinney advised Bigney “to take care to utilize professional judgment in relation to her role as an administrator while dating a teacher,” and that Mawhinney “may have made reference to higher standards applicable to administrators.”

Highlands said Mawhinney asked Bigney to hand over her work cellphone in connection with an investigation because of “concerns about (Bigney’s) apparent inability to keep appropriate boundaries in place between her professional and personal life,” and conceded that no other teachers or administrators had to turn their district-issued phones into Mawhinney as Bigney had.

But the district said “no other teachers or administrators demonstrated the same issues with regard to professional conduct and a disregard of appropriate boundaries between professional and personal relationships with other district employees, or otherwise engage in conduct that required review of their district-issued phones.”

On March 12, Bigney received a second letter of reprimand “for not following the directive to make more professional decisions,” the district’s court filing said.