Former superintendent and other plaintiffs say $75K payment is a win.

Just days before the case was scheduled for federal court in Seattle, South Whidbey School District officials announced a negotiated settlement with former Superintendent Martin Laster, Assistant Superintendent Dan Blanton, and Administrative Secretary Susan Nerison.

The district will pay the three a total of $75,000, plus $24,000 for their attorney.

The South Whidbey School District issued a statement Thursday saying that everyone involved wanted to avoid a costly court battle.

The parties reached a settlement with the three former employees through court-mandated mediation.

Judith Lonnquist, the Seattle attorney for the trio, said they were satisfied with the results.

“It is a symbolic victory, an acknowledgment by the school district that there was inappropriate treatment toward our clients,” Lonnquist said.

A press release issued by the South Whidbey School District Thursday was labeled “a joint statement of parties involved.”

“The parties have agreed to settle this dispute in order to avoid the cost and inconvenience in continuing the litigation, and neither side admits or acknowledges liability or wrongdoing by person or party,” the statement said. “The district and its directors denied these allegations and contended they were without merit.”

“The South Whidbey School District can now move forward to improve programs for students,” Superintendent Fred McCarthy said during a brief telephone interview from Spokane. “Now that the settlement has been finalized, the district will move forward in continuing to develop a high quality educational program for the students of the district.”

The settlement came 2 1/2 years after the three employees resigned their positions with the school district.

At the time, the resignations caught the board and district employees by surprise. On Monday, March 15, 2004, Laster, Blanton and Nerison cleaned out their desks and submitted letters of resignation by e-mail the following morning. They claimed “constructive discharge,” and said they were unable to perform their jobs due to ongoing harassment by board members.

The final settlement is far less than what the three had originally sought.

In October 2004, they asked for $2.75 million in damages from the district when they filed their federal lawsuit.

The lawsuit claimed their Constitutional rights had been violated, they suffered retaliation from the district, and that their integrity and reputations were impugned while employed by South Whidbey schools.

“We’re pleased with the settlement. We thought resolving it amicably was a better solution than litigation,” Lonnquist said.

“My clients were never in this case for monetary gain,” she said.

School officials said the settlement will be covered mostly by the district’s insurance.

“The settlement costs were covered almost entirely by insurance that the district had as a member of a Washington Schools Risk Management Pool,” McCarthy said.

“By settling in this manner, the district was able to avoid significantly greater costs in terms of time, effort, and resources of going to trial,” he said.

The South Whidbey School District will pay $9,900 toward the settlement, with the remaining coming from the district’s risk management insurance pool, including its attorneys fees.

As part of the settlement, the former employees agreed that they will not seek or accept employment with the South Whidbey School District.

The three had filed the lawsuit in February 2005, and the trio asked for restitution from current board members and two former board members over incidents they claimed occurred while the three worked in the South Whidbey district.

Named in the complaint are school board directors Helen Price Johnson, Jim Adsley, Bob Riggs, Greg Gilles and Rich Parker, as well as former directors Ray Gabelein and Barbara Schneeman.

Laster detailed his problems with the school board in his letter of resignation. He pointed to criticism brought on by an audit of the district’s financial practices, and said that an an acrimonious relationship existed with members of the board of education. He also cited news stories in The South Whidbey Record and actions by district staff as further reasons for his leaving.

Blanton and Nerison made similar claims in their resignation letters.

The document further states that the South Whidbey Board of Education engaged in conduct that deprived them of free speech, impugned their integrity and their reputations.

Laster and Blanton said problems in their work environment began in 2001 and continued until they quit. Nerison, a 22-year employee with the district, said her job began to become untenable in 1998.

The three are all working in other school districts. Laster is a school superintendent in Alaska; Blanton, a principal, also works in Alaska, and Nerison is employed by the Muikiteo School District.