The Mount Olive School District and its officials agreed to a $300,000 settlement in a discrimination lawsuit filed by an employee who claimed she was wrongfully admonished after a former student accused district officials of deliberately mishandling bullying complaints.
Megan Troup, a middle school counselor and anti-bullying specialist, settled her lawsuit against the Morris County district in April, according to documents obtained by the Daily Record. The payout came 14 months after Troup railed against the district after she was named in the lawsuit filed by a student's family who claimed their daughter was sexually assaulted in a park, but district officials swept it under the rug.
The family of the girl, who later moved districts, quietly settled with the district for $750,000 in 2021, with the accused boy and his parents having to pay the girl an additional $40,000. No parties took blame.
Troup, a student assistance counselor, said it was after the student's family took their case to court in 2020 to call out the school's purported transgressions that she began feeling hostility by school officials, including former Mount Olive Superintendent Robert Zywicki, who is involved in his own litigation against district board members. She was later suspended for roughly two to three weeks in 2021 but later returned to her job.
The settlement notes Troup was placed on paid leave of absence on April 10, which concludes the end of the month, at which time she will be returning to work at a district elementary school "of the board's choosing."
Troup's settlement agreement does not admit any wrongdoing or liability by any parties and was signed April 29 by Lisa Narcise, the board president, according to court documents. Narcise did not return a request seeking comment nor did Susan Swatski, the attorney that represented the district and Board of Education. Christopher Hager, Troup's attorney, declined comment.
Troup's claims of hostility
Troup was hired in 2009 as a counselor and later acquired the role of anti-bullying specialist in 2011. She was initially tasked with handling the family of the former student's claims as a potential harassment, intimidation and bullying, or HIB, claim, but stated she was swiftly barred from doing so by school officials.
In her February 2023 suit, Troup, a Budd Lake resident, claimed district officials "deliberately ignored" the parents complaints in order to keep the number of reported bullying incidents at the district artificially low. Troup, who had no history of job performance or disciplinary issues, said when she refused to misrepresent HIB statistics to the state Department of Education, she was faced by school administration with hostility and lowered job performance ratings, according to her suit.
Training opportunities for her and programs for students and staff were denied, she claimed, and the direct oversight of HIB incidents was suddenly shifted to an administrator, who controlled what potential cases she could enter into the system, she had claimed. She also claimed she was physically intimidated and threatened by administration, with one administrator "angrily" throwing an object in her direction during a meeting, the suit alleged.
Her suspension, she had claimed, stemmed from an incident outside her home where she was confronted by the mother of the girl who had been part of suing the district. Troup had also been named in that suit.
Troup denied she failed in her duties as the girl's anti-bullying specialist — much of her lawsuit pointed out the school's alleged failures and her attempts to right school officials' wrongs — and acknowledged she told the mother she would "help" her with her impending lawsuit against the district, Troup's suit stated.
Troup's roughly two- to three-week suspension came after she said she acknowledged that during the encounter with the girl's mother, she said she wanted to "help" her with the family's impending lawsuit against the district.
Troup was given a letter of reprimand, investigated for any assistance she gave the family and was later returned to her usual duties, while seemingly cleared of any wrongdoings.
The district has seen a great deal of shake-up in prior years, with the appointment of Superintendent Dr. Sumit Bangia in June 2023 after she served as acting assistant superintendent in April 2022 and acting superintendent from October 2022 through June 2023, when she signed on as superintendent through June 2026, according to her contract.
She replaced Zywicki, who was placed on paid administrative leave in 2022 for unspecified reasons. Zywicki, who led the district since 2018, filed a multi-million dollar suit against board members and resigned from the district last year. In an explosive letter to the board in May 2023, Zywicki claimed the majority of the board and its legal representatives had made it impossible for him to return to the district due to their "malicious actions, anonymous letters, rumors and innuendo." The case remains active in the state Superior Court in Morris County.
Email: lcomstock@njherald.com; Twitter: @LoriComstockNJH or on Facebook.
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