McNinch Primary School

GLEN DALE — The Marshall County Board of Education will decide on suspensions without pay for a pair of administrators at its Tuesday evening meeting.

When the board meets at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the John Marshall High School Commons, among its personnel decisions are two suspensions without pay for administrators during a period of investigation starting Dec. 4.

The administrators are not named in the document.

On Dec. 3, McNinch Primary Principal Jane Duffy and Marshall County Schools Special Programs Director Erin Cuffaro pleaded not guilty in Marshall County Magistrate Court to charges stemming from the alleged strangling of a 6-year-old non-verbal autistic student by McNinch special education teacher Kiersten Moses.

Cuffaro faces eight counts of felony gross neglect of child creating a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury; one misdemeanor count of failure to report child abuse or neglect; one misdemeanor count of obstruction of law enforcement, probation, parole, court security, corrections officer with threats of harm; and one misdemeanor count of interference with officers or members and false information. Duffy faces one misdemeanor count of failure to report child abuse or neglect.

According to the criminal complaints, neither Duffy nor Cuffaro reported the alleged incident with Moses and the student to the Child Abuse Hotline.

When interviewed by West Virginia State Police, Duffy showed a trooper a text from Cuffaro that allegedly told her to tell Moses to watch putting hands on children in lieu of an official verbal reprimand.

According to the complaints, when Cuffaro was approached by the state trooper with the information, she initially denied sending the text and showed the trooper her phone that had all texts from the one to Duffy and older deleted. Cuffaro allegedly admitted later that she had sent the text.

Moses, charged with a felony count of strangulation, two felony counts of battery and assault of a disabled child and one count of felony child abuse, no longer works for the school system. Duffy and Cuffaro have not been working since the investigation began.

The personnel decisions are part of the meeting’s consent agenda, which means the board can pass all items among the consent agenda at once without discussion.