Fired Decatur High clerk gets job back; superintendent apologizes
After a 6-week investigation, Decatur school superintendent David Dude announced Wednesday that he is reinstating Decatur High School media clerk Susan Riley, whom he initially fired on Feb. 26.
“The review of the personnel situation involving Mrs. Susan Riley is now complete,” Dude wrote on his Facebook page. “Based on careful consideration of the facts supported through the independent review, I have decided that Mrs. Riley will retain employment with the school district and will continue in the role of media clerk at DHS.”
According to David Hughes, Riley’s attorney, his client will return to work on Monday.
Riley, 61, has worked at the high school 19 years and has said she never got a bad review. Her firing Feb. 26 prompted a community outcry including emails to Dude, social media postings and a rally, and on Feb. 28 Dude changed her status to suspended with pay.
“My decision to terminate Mrs. Riley’s employment with the school district was not a ‘right decision’ as I believed,” Dude wrote. “I made a wrong decision based on facts I believed were more clear than they actually were; for that I have apologized to Mrs. Riley and to the DHS staff and hereby apologize to the greater community for which I caused unnecessary strife.”
He adds in the next paragraph, “Several significant changes in district structure, process, and procedure will be made.” He did not elaborate.
Riley said during an interview with the AJC last week, “I want to go back to DHS. I miss my kids, I think about them a lot.”
Shortly after the termination/suspension, Hughes released reasons he said Dude had cited for Riley’s firing. These included taking home an iPad, not following a new job plan and not keeping confidential a human-resources investigation of her complaints about mistreatment by the administration.
Dude replied that not all the reasons had been disclosed and Hughes’ release contained “material inaccuracies.” The school board, in an unusual move, released a statement declaring “there are a number of material inaccuracies in the press release prepared by Susan Riley’s attorney. The school system is not going to publicly correct those inaccuracies … while (Riley’s) termination is under review.”
In his 200-word Facebook statement Wednesday Dude didn’t address those “inaccuracies,” or what led to Riley’s initial firing . He also didn’t say whether the overall investigation is still ongoing. Atlanta attorney Jonathan Poole, who’s making $235 an hour, has been investigating Riley and the reasons behind her firing since March. 7.
Neither Dude, Riley, nor her attorney Hughes were immediately available for comment.
