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Summit County clerical error potentially costs Warren schools teacher’s salary for 7 months
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Warren City Schools has stopped paying a former school district home-economics teacher convicted last September of a drug offense, but it took seven months longer than it should have to find out she had been convicted.
Tracy A. Gogel, 47, of Cuyahoga Falls, was indicted in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court on April 28 on two felony counts of deception to obtain a dangerous drug. It alleged Trumbull County offenses.
But a year earlier, she had been indicted in Summit County on an earlier felony drug offense near her hometown, causing the Warren school district to place her on paid leave and assign her work apart from students.
According to Mary Lou Daugherty, chief of staff of the Summit County Clerk of Courts office, Gogel was convicted of her Summit County drug offense Sept. 17, 2015, and was placed on two years’ probation. Her driver’s license was suspended six months.
However, the online court records in Gogel’s Summit County case did not show Gogel’s conviction until April 28, 2016.
On that date, the clerk of courts placed a note in the docket indicating her Sept. 17, 2015, conviction.
An image of Gogel’s sentencing memorandum was placed on the docket April 28, 2016, and is dated April 28, 2016, telling about her conviction.
When contacted Monday, Daugherty said the late posting of the outcome of the case occurred because of a clerical error by the secretary for the common pleas judge handling the case, Tammy O’Brien.
Daughterty said this type of thing doesn’t happen very often, but it may have been the result of changes in personnel among members of the judge’s staff.
Steve Chiaro, Warren superintendent, said Monday that he changed Gogel’s status from paid leave to unpaid leave effective May 2, at the first opportunity after learning that Gogel had been convicted of the drug offense.
She has not yet been terminated from her job. A hearing still must take place before that can happen, he said.
But under Ohio law, her fourth-degree felony drug conviction would be grounds for termination.
Chiaro said terminating Gogel prior to her being convicted would have opened up the school district to potential legal action, so he chose to keep her working on special assignments at the board of education offices, away from students.
She continued to collect her wages of about $60,000 annually.
The next chance for the Warren Board of Education to terminate Gogel’s employment is at its May 31 meeting, Chiaro said.
During the months when Gogel’s case was pending in Summit County, Chiaro said he had his administrative assistant checking the Summit County Clerk of Courts website to monitor the case.