Ex-Mills principal sues over her firing

LITTLE ROCK — Teresa Moka, who was fired earlier this year from her job as principal at Mills University Studies High School, is suing the Pulaski County Special School District and Superintendent Charles McNulty for damages.

In the lawsuit filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court, Moka through her attorney J. Paul Coleman, said she was hired into the job last July and was given notice of her suspension and recommendation for termination on Jan. 26 this year. The School Board voted for the termination in March.

That notice to Moka included “approximately 31 allegations attempting to justify why Moka should be terminated,” the suit said, adding that there was no documentation provided to show what the protocol was for avoiding any of the alleged infractions. The former principal also argued that she received no disciplinary documents to indicate their was an issue with her performance as the Mills’ principal.

“It is ludicrous for Moka to be terminated for infractions never committed, and for infractions that Moka was never trained on how to avoid,” the lawsuit says.

The letter recommending termination of the principal is attached to the lawsuit.

Moka and her attorney focused in part on her being told in the letter “too many students were seen wearing blankets.” She said that she asked other principals what to do about the blankets and they advised her to take the blankets away, which she said she did. She also said no other principal was fired for students wearing blankets.

Moka disputed allegations that she entered into a $300,000 contract with a company to help math teachers in their instruction without notifying her supervisor or getting School Board approval. She said McNulty was aware of the contract and that she had canceled the contract prior to her being recommended for termination.

Moka and her attorney argued that in being fired Moka was treated differently than the district’s male principals. She cited as an example that most recently Robinson High Principal Jay Pickering was moved — not fired — to an assistant principal’s job after a student brought a gun to the Robinson High campus. Allegations against Moka did not rise to the “heinous nature of a student bringing a gun to school, however (she) was not given the option to be demoted.”