A long-running legal battle between an eastern Iowa school board and its high school principal is over.

Principal Monica Rouse has agreed to resign and take early retirement as part of an $850,000 settlement with the Durant School District.

Half of the money will come from the school district and half from its insurance company.

Former Durant Superintendent Duane Bark suspended Rouse for alleged wrongdoing in September 2009.

She was fired six months later. But she returned to her job last October after an appeal on her case went all the way to the Iowa Supreme Court.

The school district lost every court decision in the three-year battle except for a Court of Appeals ruling that Rouse couldn’t seek two years of income through a wrongful termination lawsuit.

By Phil Roberts, Davenport