TCAPS officials suspended

Region

Related Photos

Stephen E. Cousins
Marc William Morris
Gerald Morris

August 31, 2012

TCAPS officials suspended

HR boss, former principal on unpaid leave

BY GLENN PUIT gpuit@record-eagle.com The Record Eagle Fri Aug 31, 2012, 07:14 AM EDT

TRAVERSE CITY — Two Traverse City Area Public Schools administrators have been suspended without pay for violating district policy, fallout from a sexual assault case involving a former school board president's son and a teenage student.

TCAPS Superintendent Stephen Cousins on Thursday suspended Cindy Berck, the district's director of human resources, for a week without pay. In 2008 she approved the hiring of Marc W. Morris as a custodian at East Middle School.

Morris, 28, is charged with sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl who attended East Middle School. He is the son of longtime school board President Gerald Morris, who left the district when his term expired at the end of 2008.

Cousins said Marc Morris' hiring violated the district's nepotism policy.

Cousins also suspended Cathy Meyer-Looze, TCAPS director of professional development and former principal at East Middle School, for two weeks without pay for not aggressively pursuing and documenting misconduct allegations against Marc Morris when he worked at East Middle.

"When this occurs, it's heartbreaking," Cousins said. "The most important ingredient when you educate a kid is the trust you develop with mom and dad and that student. When an individual does something like this, violating that trust in such an egregious manner, then everyone in the system gets affected by it, and we will have to work extremely hard to redevelop the trust."

Authorities said Marc Morris had sex with the then-13-year-old student beginning in 2010 when she attended East Middle School and he worked there as a custodian.

Morris on Thursday appeared in 86th District Court and waived his right to a preliminary hearing.

Morris, Cousins said, was hired as a temporary employee in June 2008. That November he was hired as a part-time, permanent custodian at East Middle, a move that violated TCAPS ban on the "new hire of children, siblings, spouse, parents, in-laws or "¦ dependents of a board member or those living in a Board member's household."

Cousins wrote in his notice of disciplinary action to Berck that she should have been aware of the particulars of the nepotism policy.

"Although I find that you did not act intentionally, it is your responsibility to carry out this policy for the district," Cousins wrote. "The line of authority for hiring of custodians stops with your position. Your failure to enforce the policy is unacceptable."

Meyer-Looze was disciplined for not following up on a tip of Marc Morris' possible misconduct. In August 2010, the teen girl's stepfather alerted Meyer-Looze that the girl had received a picture from a school employee on her phone. The picture was of a man who was shirtless from chin-to-waist.

The stepfather would not identify himself to the principal or provide the principal with the picture. He identified the sender of the photo only by his first name of "Marc" and said he was a school employee.

Meyer-Looze questioned Marc Morris, who denied sending the photo.

"In the absence of corroborating evidence, the director of human resources and the principal determined that the disciplinary investigation should be halted," Cousins wrote in his report.

Cousins said the matter should have been documented and more thoroughly investigated. Meyer-Looze also did not document six other allegations of misconduct against Morris until after he was fired for showing up to work with alcohol in his system. Meyer-Looze pulled together her report as Morris appealed his dismissal.

"While your actions did not reflect an indifferent response to any situation, they were, in my opinion, ineffective," Cousins wrote to Meyer-Looze. "I would have expected an experienced administrator to take additional steps to pursue the identity of the caller and information regarding the accusation. Further, your failure to document the phone call with the parent, the subsequent incidences with the former custodian, the questioning of the former custodian, or conversations with other administrators involved in the investigation is unacceptable."

Cousins does not believe Gerald Morris used his position to pressure TCAPS to hire his son.

Marc Morris, in applying for other positions in the School District, listed TCAPS Chief Financial Officer Paul Soma and former Superintendent Jim Feil as references. Cousins found the listing of Soma and Feil as references did not provide Morris special treatment.

Cousins also said the fact that the younger Morris had prior convictions for driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol would not have prevented him from being hired.

A background check inexplicably did not turn up Marc Morris's prior conviction for marijuana possession or the fact that he'd repeatedly been accused of violating probation.