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After 7 hours, school board fires nurse |
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Tuesday, 24 November 2009 |
Glenda McDougal’s 14 years of employment with the Benton School District ended shortly after midnight today following a hearing that lasted more than seven hours.
McDougal, a nurse at Angie Grant Elementary School, was terminated at the conclusion of that proceeding.
She had been placed on suspension by Laura Baber, the school principal, who said McDougal had demonstrated a pattern of incompetent behavior that included medical negligence, insubordination and falsifying student medical records.
McDougal denied Baber’s allegations and had filed a grievance against the principal.
Dan Jordan, director of personnel, and Dr. Tony Prothro, superintendent, supported Baber’s position and recommended that she be terminated.
All seven members of the Benton School Board voted for the termination. The motion for dismissal was presented by member Paul Childress.
McDougal has the option of appealing the board’s decision to Saline County Circuit Court but has not made that determination.
After the hearing concluded, McDougal’s legal representative, Michael Coleman of the Arkansas Education Association, said he considered the board’s decision “unreasonable.”
“I think all the allegations were correctable, and I think she was unjustly viewed,” he said.
He pointed out that McDougal consistently received outstanding evaluations in her 14 years with the district. Copies of the evaluations were available at the meeting and supported his statement.
“Our legal department will review the transcript and decide whether to appeal the board’s decision to the court system,” Coleman said.
Several incidents were referred to in testimony in the hearing, but McDougal and Baber gave differing accounts of each.
One of these incidents occurred on Oct. 8 when school personnel, including Baber, contended that McDougal wrongly delegated the medical care of a diabetic student to the secretary in the Angie Grant office. School officials contended that the secretary could not attend to the child because she was alone in the office and was assisting others.
Testifying to that effect were Baber; Stacy Smith, the assistant principal; and the secretary, Ginny Ulmer.
McDougal testified that the incident happened shortly after 3 p.m. and pointed out that her work day was designated as 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. She said she had been instructed not to have any overtime and medical assistance to students after 3 p.m. was to be provided by office personnel who had been trained to do so.
Baber and Ulmer testified that McDougal was abrupt with the child, telling him at the office doorway, “Go. They will take care of you.”
In a letter Prothro sent to McDougal, he stated: “You displayed no concern for the child’s medical needs, even though you were aware of his fluctuating blood sugar levels. You were short, abrupt and rude with the child.”
Testimony revealed that McDougal, who was in the process of leaving school when the incident occurred, did return to administer care to the student.
Another complaint, which involved the same child, noted that the boy’s mother said McDougal had given the child milk to act as a fast-acting carbohydrate to elevate his blood-sugar level after she had asked that he not be given milk.
The child reportedly had been allergic to milk in younger years but was being allowed to have milk in small amounts, testimony revealed.
McDougal said there was nothing in the child’s health record to indicate the allergy, and she had not been aware that his mother did not want milk used to raise his blood sugar. She pointed out that milk is included in Arkansas Children’s Hospital guidelines for this purpose.
Another allegation, also involving the same student, accused McDougal of making a false entry in the child’s medical records.
The entry, which McDougal said she made on Oct. 9, noted that Baber had taken the boy’s blood-sugar reading and that it was 194.
Baber testified that she never took the child’s blood-sugar reading, but she had supervised the child doing it once.
Video surveillance showed that Baber was not in the nurse’s office either before or after the time referenced on the medical log, school officials pointed out.
Those videotapes were shown for the board, but the public was required to leave the setting.
McDougal contended that the videotapes had been altered.
Baber and a school employee who oversees this function testified to the contrary.
Another incident reportedly occurred around June 1 when McDougal received a written reprimand for administering medication to the wrong student.
In Prothro’s letter, he stated: “The student who actually received the medication was not supposed to have received it, and the student to whom the medication actually belonged was denied his medication for almost a week.”
Both children had the same first names, McDougal said during her testimony.
She said she called the teacher to send the student to her office for her to give him his medication, and that the teacher had sent the wrong child. She did not ask the child to state his first and last names, she said.
Neither student suffered ill effects from this situation, McDougal testified.
Another incident involved in the dispute reportedly occurred around Sept. 29 when a child entered the school office carrying a pill that was not inside a container. The child said the pill was a steroid and she needed to take it after she had eaten breakfast.
The child first attempted to give the pill to Baber, who declined to take it, saying she needed to wash her hands and get a baggie to put the pill in. She said she secured the child in her office while she put her purse away and returned to the office. When McDougal entered the office, Baber said she expected McDougal to take the pill from the student, but McDougal said she could not take the pill since it wasn’t in its original container.
School officials said McDougal’s manner of handling the situation could have resulted in the child entering the school’s general population with the pill and it could have had serious results.
Another complaint against McDougal concerned the keys to the school’s medical cabinet, which is in the nurse’s office at the school. When McDougal would leave for the day, she was instructed to leave the cabinet’s key in the office.
For some time there was only one key, but there is now a duplicate, Baber said.
McDougal’s failure to leave the key in the office resulted in two incidents where students were unable to obtain the inhalers they use for respiratory conditions.
Paul Blume served as the school board’s legal counsel, and attorney Clark Brewster represented the administration.
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