Several school officials in Delbarton, West Virginia--just a few miles north of the Kentucky border--are accused of not only covering up a two-year campaign of sexual abuse by two middle-school boys, but of retaliating against two of the victims. It got so bad that state attorney general Patrick Morrisey was forced to seek an injunction to protect the girls and to stop the adults from interfering in parallel investigations by his office and the state human rights commission. Richard Lyon briefly mentioned this on Friday.
Well, one head has already rolled in this case. According to WOWK-TV in Huntington, one of biggest fish in the case--the principal of the middle school--has either resigned or been fired.
It appears Burch Middle School is looking for a new principal, but there has been no comment from school officials.
The school's principal, Melissa Webb, answered her home phone at about 1:30 p.m. Friday, May 9, but repeatedly said she had no comment on the situation and would not confirm why she was home on a weekday afternoon.
The county lists the position as open on its vacancy site, but the page was last updated May 1. News of Attorney General Patrick Morrisey's injunction was released May 8.A person who answered the phone May 9 at the school said the county board of education would have to comment on the question of whether or not Webb had resigned. A person who answered the phone at the county board of education said the county superintendent and assistant superintendent both were out of the office for the day and she could not comment.
Webb was assistant principal at the time this travesty started last year, and took over as principal this year. She is accused of helping retaliate against two of the girls by punishing them on numerous trumped-up disciplinary violations, as well as having one of them transferred to seventh-grade classes when she was in eighth grade. She is also accused of failing to report the abuse to the police, and even went as far as to bar state troopers from interviewing students on campus. Even money says that Webb has already lawyered up--which means the other defendants in the case, including the superintendent of schools, need to be very afraid.
The one thing that mystifies me in this case is that most of the villains in this are women. Besides Webb, current assistant principal Deanna Maynard and counselor Hester Kealey are named as defendants, and former principal Jada Hunter is also accused of covering up the abuse though she isn't formally named as a defendant. I keep getting a picture of the Heathers all grown up.