{"id":11483,"date":"2017-08-21T03:38:13","date_gmt":"2017-08-21T07:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=11483"},"modified":"2017-08-21T03:38:13","modified_gmt":"2017-08-21T07:38:13","slug":"brick-schools-to-pay-275k-whistleblower-settlement-to-former-vice-principal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2017\/08\/brick-schools-to-pay-275k-whistleblower-settlement-to-former-vice-principal\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick Schools to Pay $275K Whistleblower Settlement to Former Vice Principal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Brick<\/a>

Brick Township Memorial High School (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Brick Township school district will settle a whistleblower lawsuit brought by a former vice principal for $275,000, according to documents obtained by Shorebeat through an Open Public Records Act request.<\/p>\n

Brenda Coyle, a former vice principal at Brick Memorial High School, filed the lawsuit last year<\/a>, claiming Richard Caldes, the current BMHS principal and former interim superintendent, put the wheels in motion for her to be fired after she refused to change his stepson\u2019s grade in the district\u2019s computer system.<\/p>\n

The district, in settlement papers, denied any wrongdoing on the part of any of its employees and continued to \u201cdeny the validity of the \u2026 disputed claims\u201d Coyle made in her lawsuit. Coyle and the district signed both a non-disparagement and non-disclosure agreement, however the state\u2019s public records law supersedes such civil contractual agreements.<\/p>\n

Coyle was denied tenure by the district, prompting the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The complaint, filed in Ocean County Superior Court in January 2016 by Coyle, the former administrator, states that Caldes contacted her on Jan. 4, 2016, four\u00a0months before he became interim superintendent, to request Coyle log into Apex, an online course program, and change his stepson\u2019s grade. According to the lawsuit, Caldes told Coyle his son \u201cdid not have a high enough score to progress through the program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coyle refused, stating in court papers that it would have been illegal for her to access the Apex account needed to change the grade because the student\u2019s teachers had not authorized her to do so.<\/p>\n

Coyle states\u00a0in the lawsuit that her non-tenure was retaliation over her refusal to change the grade. Caldes, she alleges, told her the reason for his decision was based on \u201cevaluations and observations,\u201d but Coyle claims both her evaluations and observations were \u201cuniformly positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alan H. Schorr, Coyle\u2019s attorney, told Shorebeat in 2006 that Coyle became \u201cpersona non grata\u201d with the district and was unable to find another job.<\/p>\n

Both parties are now barred from commenting publicly on the settlement.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Brick Township school district will settle a whistleblower lawsuit brought by a former vice principal for $275,000, according to documents obtained by Shorebeat through an Open Public Records Act request. Brenda Coyle, a former vice principal at Brick Memorial High School, filed the lawsuit last year, claiming Richard Caldes, the current BMHS principal and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[211,2067,210,1286,3040],"class_list":["post-11483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brick-schools","tag-bmhs","tag-brenda-coyle","tag-brick-memorial-high-school","tag-richard-caldes","tag-whistleblower-lawsuit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/bmhs.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-2Zd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}