Appeals court rules for WO-C district in Dardeau whistleblower lawsuit

Tommy Mann, Jr.

A decision by the Texas Ninth District Court of Appeals in Beaumont to uphold a ruling by the 260 District Court in Orange County has left The West Orange-Cove Consolidated Independent School District vindicated.

Dr. O. Taylor Collins and the West Orange-Cove Consolidated Independent School District received news Thursday an appeal by former employee Dale Dardeau in a whistleblower suit against the school district had been denied.

Dardeau alleged he was retaliated against by Collins, several school board members and the district for contacting the Texas Education Agency’s Assessment Division in August 2005 and informing it that 38 fifth-grade students had been “socially promoted” to sixth grade at West Orange-Stark Middle School, where Dardeau served as principal at the time.

Dardeau was reassigned from the middle school to the assistant principal role at Anderson Elementary on Aug. 4, 2005 and claimed this was a result of his contacting TEA.

However, Collins contended he had already decided to reassign Dardeau, which is within the superintendent’s power, to the elementary campus prior to Dardeau’s phone call to the TEA because of the middle school’s preliminary TAKS scores the district received in May 2005.

The middle school was later identified as “Academically Unacceptable” by the TEA when Accountability ratings were released that summer.

In a whistle-blower claim, a public employee suing under the Whistleblower Act has the burden of proof, including and among other things that he suffered discriminatory or retaliatory conduct by the employer by the employer that would not have occurred when it did if the employee had not reported the violation of the law.

The Texas Ninth Court of Appeals denied Dardeau’s appeal because, even though “Collins may have been aware of Dardeau’s phone call to the TEA on Aug. 3, 2005, there is nothing in the record to suggest that phone call was significant to Collins or played any part in his decision to reassign Dardeau to the assistant principal position at Anderson Elementary.”

The court also concluded there was no evidence that Dardeau followed up on his request for more information from other campus principals regarding social promotion or that he ever spoke with the TEA again about the matter, nor did anyone from the TEA ever contact the school district about Dardeau’s allegation of socially promoting the 38 students.

Prior to his retirement in 2007 from West Orange-Cove CISD, Dardeau has either filed or been party to four lawsuits against the school district.

Dardeau settled a lawsuit with the school district for $150,000 in 1992. He claimed then-superintendent Jerome Bourgeois had violated his right of free speech after criticizing the superintendent’s actions.

He settled on another lawsuit in 1999 when he claimed his daughter was wrongfully denied valedictorian honors. He received a $30,000 check from the district’s insurance company, which was said to be the amount his daughter lost in scholarship funds for not being valedictorian.

In early 2007, Dardeau filed a motion of non-suit releasing the school district and Andrew Hayes, a former superintendent, of all liability when Dardeau was not selected as the high school principal.