Carol Muniz, the now-retired vice principal of North Elementary School, is expected to turn herself in on a charge of battery in coming days – after a Morgantown Police detective said he viewed surveillance video of her striking a student with her fist.
When that does happen, she will have followed Natalie Webb, North’s principal who turned herself in Wednesday on a charge of failing to the report the matter to the proper authorities in a timely manner, as per state code.
The assault, meanwhile, was said to have occurred Jan. 26, when the student, who is 8 years old and identified as having special needs, became unruly in a classroom, according to a report compiled by Morgantown Police Detective R. Stallings.
North’s Safety Care Team, which included Muniz, was summoned to intervene.
Stallings said the video showed the student actively resisting in the hallway after being removed from the classroom.
It was then, the detective said, the vice principal reacted.
“Muniz responds to the student’s resistance,” he wrote, “by raising her hand, making a fist, and striking the student in the head.”
That wasn’t the only case of aggressive behavior by staff at the school on the Chestnut Ridge Road, which is otherwise heralded for its academic achievement and the international diversity of its student body.
Two other incidents, unrelated to the above, occurred in the days after Jan. 26 in a classroom housing five students on the autism spectrum.
The district has since resolved the later cases, the superintendent said, which resulted in the termination of a substitute teacher’s contract and the suspension of two aides – neither of whom will return to North.
One aide has since retired.
The other, who is sitting out the rest of year by choice, has undergone additional training and will be reassigned to another school in the fall, Mon Schools Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr., said Thursday.
“Training,” the superintendent told The Dominion Post, is the watchword.
So is simply being there, he said, for a segment of students more vulnerable than most.
“If there’s anything good coming out of this, it’s that we’re going to ramp up training for our aides,” he said.
“We have to do our due diligence, so we can provide the best education, and the best educational experience, to all our kids.”
Muniz, as said, is no longer employed by the district.
Last year, the veteran teacher and administrator announced the 2022-23 term would be her last.
Having been under administrative leave since the hallway incident came to light, she took an early retirement last month.
Retirement from her career, Campbell said, but not from the legal process.
Same for Webb, he said, with both now facing criminal charges.
The superintendent said the district will continue to cooperate with all necessary parties, again under the mandates of state code – a regulatory roster including the West Virginia Department of Education, Child Protective Services, the state Department of Health and Human Resources and Morgantown PD.
That didn’t happen in the minutes, hours and days after Jan. 26, he said, which led to Webb’s charge and the sanctioning of her unpaid leave, which is ongoing.
Campbell said the district’s central office wasn’t notified until Feb. 12 – when a North Elementary teacher whom he did not name contacted Stacy Sylvester, the district’s special education director.
Sylvester, in turn, contacted school safety director Adam Henkins, who immediately called MECCA 911 and Child Protective Services, as per state code.
“After it was brought to our attention,” Campbell said, “we acted promptly and did everything as a district we were supposed to do.”
There’s still the matter of Webb’s employment in the district.
The principal has been hailed for her nightly read-aloud sessions to students, via remote, during the height of the pandemic; and her overseeing of North’s interlocking network of vegetable gardens, which serve as living lesson plans for all grades and classes there.
What is grown in the garden often ends up North’s lunchtime menu – and Webb once led a group of students to the White House Rose Garden, where the visitors from West Virginia made nutritional fare with then-First Lady Michelle Obama.
The principal is also subject to the district’s in-house investigation.
In a statement released Thursday, Campbell said: “The next step in the process as it relates to Ms. Webb’s employment will occur in the very near future, a process that will comply with the due process rights afforded to public employees.”
Webb, meanwhile, declined comment Thursday, saying she was advised by her attorney to not talk until the conclusion of her case.
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