Subscribe Place Ad Buy Trib Photos Readers' Choice Contests
Jobs Homes Autos Classifieds
Trib Total Media Contact Us
Highlands moving elementary principal to Early Childhood Center | TribLIVE.com
Valley News Dispatch

Highlands moving elementary principal to Early Childhood Center

Brian C. Rittmeyer
Brian C. Rittmeyer
1962280_web1_vnd-highlandsprincipal-112019
Highlands School District
Highlands Elementary School Principal Samantha Perlik will become principal of the district’s Early Childhood Center in January, replacing acting Principal Cathy Russo.

The school educating the youngest students in Highlands School District is set to have its third principal this school year.

Samantha Perlik, principal of Highlands Elementary School in Tarentum, will become principal of the Early Childhood Center in January after the Christmas break, school board President Debbie Beale said. The Brackenridge school serves all of the district’s pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students.

The district is looking for a new principal for the elementary school, Beale said.

Perlik will replace Cathy Russo, who was named acting principal of the Early Childhood Center in October following the resignation of Principal Heather Bigney.

Russo said Tuesday she is continuing as acting principal until Perlik takes over.

Bigney is suing the district in federal court, alleging that Superintendent Monique Mawhinney discriminated against her and threatened to fire her for taking unpaid leave and dating a former teacher.

That former teacher, Jason Smith, a fourth-grade teacher, resigned in February and has a separate lawsuit against the district alleging retaliation for using his leave rights last year.

Russo is named in both lawsuits. Russo had been assigned Bigney’s duties as principal while she was on leave, according to Bigney’s lawsuit.

Perlik is named in Smith’s suit, but not Bigney’s.

Russo was principal of the elementary school until July 1, 2018, when she was named coordinator of curriculum instruction assessment and funding programs for the district. Perlik replaced Russo.

Highlands has disputed Bigney’s claims but has not yet filed an answer in court. The district has filed an answer to Smith’s complaint, denying his allegations and asking for it to be dismissed.

The district said Smith has failed to establish a case of retaliation and states its actions on Smith’s employment were based on “legitimate, neutral and nondiscriminatory reasons.”

The district denies that Mawhinney directed Smith’s job performance rating to be changed or that she ever told Russo to change his ratings. The district said Perlik was Smith’s supervising principal at the time the rating was completed.

Brian C. Rittmeyer is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Brian at 724-226-4701, [email protected] or via Twitter .

TribLIVE commenting policy

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.