A judge has ordered some current and past members of an eastern Iowa school board to serve jail time. Cedar County District Judge Mark Smith says some current and past members of the Durant School Board must serve 30 days in the Cedar County slammer and pay individual $500 fines for being in contempt of court.
Smith says the board violated a court order as to how it restored Monica Rouse to her old job as Durant High School principal. The board fired Rouse in 2010, claiming wrongdoing. But she won an appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court earlier this year and returned to work last April.
The school district, however, placed her desk in a storage room in the wing of the building the elementary school shares with the high school. Her duties have been split with a co-principal.
Smith says that those named in his ruling can avoid jail by giving Rouse all of the rights she had prior to her termination as principal.
By Phil Roberts, Davenport