Former school nurse sues principal, Beaufort Co. schools, claims she was forced to retire
A former school nurse is suing her principal and Beaufort County School District for terminating her last school year without cause and breach of contract, according to a lawsuit filed Oct. 8.
In the lawsuit, Deborah Hughes claims that her principal at Port Royal Elementary School, Vicki Goude, “interfered with (her) personal and professional life” and falsely accused her of “medical mistakes.”
She also claims that the school district was grossly negligent in supervising Goude, who was in her first year as principal, despite being “on notice that Defendant Goude engaged in retaliatory employment practices” after other employees complained to district officials.
District spokesperson Candace Bruder declined to comment, saying it was a personnel issue.
Hughes was hired by the district in 1999 and worked as the school nurse until May, two months before she was planning to retire. She had already sent notice of her retirement to her principal in March and to the district in April, according to the suit.
Hughes says she was called to the office of the district head of human resources, Alice Walton, in May, one day after administering insulin injections to a diabetic student.
“Walton asked (Hughes) if she knew why she was there and, ‘what an egregious thing she had done,’” the suit reads, though it does not note why Walton says that.
Walton then told Hughes she was being fired, and Hughes asked if she could retire or resign instead to keep her insurance. She was “told she could retire and keep her benefits if she wrote a letter of retirement, signed, and dated it,” which she did that day, according to the lawsuit.
Walton declined to comment via district spokesperson Bruder.
Hughes claims that her problems with Goude began earlier that year.
According to the lawsuit, Goude “frequently found issues when (Hughes) would momentarily forget to wear her face mask, when she got behind in filling out Covid paperwork, and when she was not as computer-savvy as younger nurses at other schools.”
Goude would call Hughes into her office “weekly, sometimes daily to discuss these issues,” at one point telling Hughes to “’write down everything because (she) can’t remember anything,’” according to the suit.
Hughes also claims that Goude made “pretextual complaints” about her handling of another situation: In April, a student’s mother came to the school to discuss her child’s seizure disorder and then began to have a seizure herself, which Hughes claims she treated her for.
Hughes is represented by Samantha Albrecht of Columbia-based law firm Cromer Babb Porter & Hicks LLC. The lawsuit asks that Goude and the district pay damages for her “loss of employment, loss of future earning capacity, humiliation, embarrassment, mental anguish, and severe reputational loss.” She has requested a jury trial.