School employees were ostracized for reporting suspected child abuse, $1.8m suit says

Laurie Kash, (left) former special education director, and Michael Carter, (right) superintendent of the Rainier School District, are listed as defendants in a lawsuit filed Nov. 14, 2017. Two instructional assistants are accusing them and the district of harassing them for reporting suspected child abuse. (Tim Mam/File photo/2012)

Two Rainier School District employees who say they defied a district administrator's orders to keep quiet about a 6-year-old student’s alleged abuse filed a $1.8 million lawsuit this week.

Michelle Eastham and Terrianne MacEllven say they were harassed and ostracized by Special Education Director Laurie Kash and Kash’s husband, Superintendent Michael Carter, because they refused to ignore the 6-year-old girl’s disturbing reports of physical and sexual abuse.

Eastham and MacEllven worked with the girl in a special education class and said she told them in October 2015 that a teenage boy was touching her underneath her underwear, had punched her in the face and had pinched her nose shut and covered her mouth, according to the lawsuit.

Eastham and MacEllven were instructional assistants in the girl’s classroom and mandatory reporters of child abuse under Oregon law, the suit states.

Eastham and MacEllven informed the girl’s teacher, who in turn, informed Kash, the suit states. But Kash insisted that the two not tell the Oregon Department of Human Services or police of the 6-year-old’s report because the girl was a “fantastical liar,” the suit states.

That’s even though Eastham and MacEllven had seen bruises on the girl and a bloody nose, which was consistent with someone punching her in the face, the suit says. Eastham and MacEllven felt “a higher obligation,” the suit says, and reported the alleged abuse.

Kash then met with Eastham, MacEllven and other district employees and said the girl was “nuts” and a “flirt who likes to flirt with men” and “bat her eyelashes at them,” according to the lawsuit. The suit states that Kash revealed during the meeting that she knew the teenage boy who the girl named as her abuser and that she didn’t believe the girl.

The lawsuit lists the school district, Kash and Carter as defendants. Carter, the superintendent, declined to comment, saying that the district doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

Kash couldn’t be reached for comment. She no longer works for the district. In August 2017, she took a new job as state director of special education for the Texas Education Agency in Austin, according to her Facebook page.

It’s unclear if the girl’s reports of abuse were determined to be founded by state child-welfare investigators, if she was taken out of the environment where she said she was being abused and if the teenage boy was prosecuted.

According to the suit, both Kash and Carter embarked on a campaign to make the professional lives of Eastham and MacEllven difficult. The suit says that Kash threatened to issue written reprimands if they reported child abuse again -- and that no district employee could report suspected child abuse to authorities without first receiving her approval.

The suit also states that their schedules were changed and the two were no longer allowed to eat lunch together. Kash also made derogatory statements to other school district employees about the two, including that they need to “learn to shut up,” the suit states.

Eastham also worried that her three sons, who were students in the district, faced retaliation, including a grade change from an A to an F.

The suit claims that Carter intercepted complaints by Eastham and MacEllven to the school board, so the school board never received those complaints. In another instance, when the school board did receive complaints about Kash and Carter, the board refused to get involved, the suit states.

MacEllven resigned in September 2016 because of harassment and Eastman has stayed on, though she continues to face harassment and went on medical leave in October with post-traumatic stress and other stress-related symptoms, the suit says.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for Oregon. Portland attorney Damien Munsinger is representing Eastham and MacEllven.

Read the lawsuit here.

-- Aimee Green

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