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Barletta: GOP unified despite Cruz decision to not endorse Trump

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<p>Former Coughlin High School administrator Stephen Stahl&#8217;s lawsuit against the Wilkes-Barre Area School District ranks way up there on the list of local things that make you say, &#8220;<em>What the?</em>&#8221;</p><p>On first blush, Stahl is either a brilliant legal tactician or a man with chutzpah coming out his ears.</p><p>Convicted in January 2015 of having sex with an underage student, the former dean of students and wrestling coach lost his job and his state teaching license while getting a sentence of six to 23 months in prison on a corruption of minors charge.</p><p>Yet 18 months post-conviction and less than nine months after getting out on parole, Stahl filed paperwork contending he was wrongfully dismissed, that the union failed to represent him appropriately, and &#8211; perhaps oddest of all &#8211; that personal items he had left at the school were sold by district employees through an auction.</p><p>Making the case, as Alice would say, &#8220;curiouser and curiouser,&#8221; those &#8220;personal items&#8221; reportedly included a leather jacket, a white-tailed deer head mount, and an antique outboard motor.</p><p>Why, exactly, did he have them in his office in the first place? Isn&#8217;t there district policy regarding an employee&#8217;s personal property on school grounds, and shouldn&#8217;t the policy be &#8220;bring such property at your own risk&#8221; unless expressly required by the district? And seriously, an outboard motor?</p><p>Stahl&#8217;s core complaint is that the school district did not give him a proper, legally required Loudermill hearing before firing him. Despite the urge many people might feel, this concern should not be dismissed lightly.</p><p>Certainly the vileness of the crime provokes a reaction so visceral it&#8217;s difficult to get past. The man had a sexual relationship with a student &#8211; then in 10th grade &#8211; for a year, with trysts supposedly in the school itself. For any parent, the thought is inescapable: &#8220;If it were <em>my</em> daughter &#8230;&#8221;</p><p>But the termination happened <em>before</em> the court verdict, and the need for the district to follow legal procedures regarding a Loudermill hearing is not erased by the criminal conviction.</p><p>That said, this lawsuit is hard to take for two key reasons: 1) Stahl was convicted, and 2) Stahl accepted the conviction and served his time without any appeals.</p><p>Incidentally &#8211; and perhaps, tellingly &#8211; the lawsuit makes no mention of why he was terminated.</p><p>Stahl has the right to pursue this action, and it behooves all of us to withhold final judgment until the suit plays out in court. But taxpayers can be forgiven their chagrin in seeing this convicted criminal demand that the district pay him $137,884 in lost salary, health insurance and damages.</p><p>After all, it&#8217;s hard to envision an outcome favorable to taxpayers.</p><p>If Stahl wins, the money he gets comes from taxpayers, and it comes because of some presumed error by district officials or district attorney(s).</p><p>If he loses, guess who paid for the district&#8217;s legal defense?</p><p>The fact that one might cost less than the other is cold comfort.</p><style>
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Our Opinion: After corruption of minors conviction, ex-school workers’ lawsuit especially galling