Whistle-blower principal to be reinstated in Camden
A former Camden principal who last year received an $860,000 settlement from the school district must be reinstated in the district by July 2013, an arbitrator has ruled. In a whistle-blower lawsuit filed in Superior Court in 2007, Joseph Carruth said he was fired for publicly alleging that Camden school officials had pressured him to change test scores at Dr. Charles E. Brimm Medical Arts High School in 2005. The school district settled Carruth’s civil lawsuit in November.
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A former Camden principal who last year received an $860,000 settlement from the school district must be reinstated in the district by July 2013, an arbitrator has ruled.
In a whistle-blower lawsuit filed in Superior Court in 2007, Joseph Carruth said he was fired for publicly alleging that Camden school officials had pressured him to change test scores at Dr. Charles E. Brimm Medical Arts High School in 2005. The school district settled Carruth's civil lawsuit in November.
Carruth, who earned $107,000 a year at the magnet school where he had been principal for two years, was terminated in 2006 on a recommendation by then-Superintendent Annette D. Knox. No reason was cited, but officials later said it was due to poor job performance.
If a principal's position opens up by next May, Carruth must be hired to fill it, said school board attorney Lester Taylor. If no principal's job becomes available, he will be offered an alternate position.
"We are very pleased to be able to make Mr. Carruth whole and get him justice," Carruth's attorney, Ross Begelman, said Tuesday. "He fought to come back to Camden."
Contact Claudia Vargas at 267-815-1953 or cvargas@phillynews.com, or follow on Twitter @InqCVargas. Read her blog, "Camden Flow," at www.philly.com/philly/blogs/camden_flow/.