UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 16-2435
ADONIA K. SMITH,
Plaintiff – Appellant,
v.
LOUDOUN COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS,
Defendant – Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at
Alexandria. James C. Cacheris, Senior District Judge. (1:15-cv-00956-JCC-TCB)
Argued: January 25, 2018 Decided: March 1, 2018
Before WILKINSON, TRAXLER, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Timothy Lawrence Coffield, COFFIELD PLLC, Keswick, Virginia, for Appellant. Julia
Bougie Judkins, BANCROFT, MCGAVIN, HORVATH & JUDKINS, PC, Fairfax,
Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Adonia Smith appeals a district court order granting summary judgment against
her on her claims against Loudoun County Public Schools for wrongful discharge and
retaliation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), see 42 U.S.C. § 12101, et
seq. Finding no error, we affirm.
I.
Loudoun County (Virginia) School District hired Smith in August 2007 as a
teacher of special education for the hearing impaired at Frances Hazel Reid Elementary
School. Smith has been profoundly deaf since birth — she hears nothing, cannot speak,
and cannot read lips. Smith is fluent in American Sign Language (“ASL”). It is her first
and primary language, with English being her second. She was assigned to teach several
hearing-impaired students. A large part of her job was drafting and managing the
Individualized Education Plans (“IEPs”) for the students.
Loudoun attempted to accommodate Smith’s disability in various ways. For
scheduled events, such as staff meetings, parent-teacher conferences, IEP meetings, and
other employer-sponsored events, Loudoun provided ASL interpreters through a contract
with an interpreter-placement company, WeInterpret. Smith could also request a
WeInterpret interpreter outside of scheduled events. Smith claimed, however, that the
interpreters occasionally did not show up and often were not competent when they did
appear.
Another accommodation issue involved informal communication between Smith
and people in different rooms or buildings. To accommodate Smith’s need to verbally
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communicate with such people, Loudoun installed a video relay phone in Smith’s class
and another in a workroom across the hall in spring 2009. That phone allowed Smith to
sign ASL into a screen linked to an interpreter who would verbally translate through a
standard phone line. In her first two years at the school, Smith also benefited from
working in the same classroom as a colleague who was fluent in ASL and from having an
instructional assistant who was nearly fluent in ASL.
Smith’s initial time at the school was successful. Following her first year – the
2007-08 school year – Principal Liz Fye gave her a favorable end-of-year review. Smith
remained on good terms with the administration during the first half of her second year as
well, and Loudoun’s deaf and hard-of-hearing specialist, Eileen McCartin, evaluated
Smith positively in December 2008.
In early 2009, however, problems began to surface. In February 2009, Principal
Fye held a meeting for all deaf/hard-of-hearing staff and announced the school would be
adopting a “total communication approach” to educating deaf/hard-of-hearing students.
J.A. 1212. Rather than concentrating on ASL, teachers were to use whatever
communication method was effective for teaching a hearing-impaired student. Smith
strongly disagreed with this method and contended hearing impaired students should
communicate primarily in ASL. Smith went so far as to send an email to her students’
guardians that derided the new approach.
In early March 2009, Smith sent an email to Principal Fye requesting a full-time
ASL interpreter during the school day. Smith stated that an interpreter would be a “big
help” to her for her “interaction with school administrators, teachers, staff members,
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parents, and students who don’t know ASL.” J.A. 1398. Principal Fye submitted the
request to the district’s risk management division, which undertook to consider the issue
with the employer benefits department.
On March 13, 2009, Smith received her first documented reprimand for
interpersonal conflicts. Assistant Principal Richard Hammler reprimanded Smith for
getting “angry and hostile” toward a substitute teacher and expressed disappointment that
Smith had not heeded his “plea on two occasions for teamwork and professionalism.”
J.A. 1401.
The disagreements and reprimand notwithstanding, Smith received an overall
satisfactory performance review for her second year, and Loudoun renewed her contract
for a third year. Still, Principal Fye noted that there were several areas where she needed
to improve: her “lesson plans and assessments need[ed] to be more detailed and
completed in a timely manner”; she needed to keep a binder with each child’s IEP,
schedule, lesson plans and assessments of their progress toward their goals; she needed to
“work on the knowledge base of the curriculum”; and she needed “to work on completing
the [IEP process] in a timely manner.” J.A. 238. Fye also indicated Smith needed to
improve her “collaboration” with the other teachers at the school — hearing teachers who
did not know ASL — for example, by sharing lesson plans with the general classroom
teacher. J.A. 238. She recommended Smith work with a mentor on these issues.
Smith responded that she was familiar with the curriculum but needed to teach
“differently from the established curriculum”; that she “was fully ready to work closely
with the regular classroom teacher but [that teacher’s] attitude was condescending”; and
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that she did not need a mentor. J.A. 240-41. Smith did not indicate the lack of a
translator was to blame for her deficiencies.
Unfortunately for Smith, the 2009-2010 school year turned out to be her most
difficult yet. Before the start of the year, the two teachers Smith had relied on for help in
informal communication were transferred to other positions and thus no longer available
to help Smith, although one of those teachers was replaced by another teacher who knew
ASL. Smith reiterated her request for a full-time personal ASL interpreter on numerous
occasions in the fall of 2009, emphasizing that a full-time interpreter was needed “to
assist me in my ongoing communications with [school] staff . . . in order to avoid
misunderstandings.” J.A. 1635. Around this time, the administration moved the video
relay phone from Smith’s classroom to a locked equipment room in the library. Smith
added the return of her video relay phone to her previous accommodation requests.
Prior to the 2009-2010 school year, the school had hired a new principal (Brenda
Jochems) and assistant principal (Ellen McGraw), and these administrators quickly
developed substantial concerns with Smith’s performance. For example, Smith was
expected to have prepared lesson plans in her classroom ready for administrators to
review during classroom observations, but Jochems and McGraw frequently had to
request her lesson plans as they were not always available in the classroom or submitted
for review. Additionally, Smith had frequent conflicts with Jochems, McGraw, and
McCartin based on Smith’s disagreement with Loudoun policy regarding how to teach
hearing-impaired children.
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During the school year, Smith received letters of reprimand from Jochems,
McGraw, and McCartin. Jochems reprimanded Smith for refusing to allow a hearing-
impaired substitute teacher to enter Smith’s classroom and for refusing to work with her
colleague. McCartin reprimanded Smith for unprofessional conduct, noting that over
several months McCartin had observed “a pattern of behavior that has become more and
more unprofessional and unproductive,” including a then-recent incident when Smith
became “irate” after being assigned to continue teaching two particular students. J.A.
914. And McGraw reprimanded Smith for “inappropriate behavior” that occurred when
Smith allegedly attempted to leave an IEP meeting shortly after it began and then
contributed only unproductive comments during the remainder of the meeting. J.A. 913.
Furthermore, on November 3, 2009, Loudoun’s employee-benefit supervisor
denied Smith’s requests for a video relay phone in her classroom and for a daily full-time
interpreter. The supervisor explained that Smith already had access to two video relay
phones at school and that the school would accommodate impromptu verbal
interpretation by installing a video remote interpreting service within sixty days. In
actuality, however, the service was not installed and working until seven months later.
In 2009, Smith was placed on the “December list,” alerting her that she was at risk
for non-renewal of her contract for the following year. J.A. 261. In a letter explaining
this decision, Principal Jochems criticized Smith for insufficient and untimely lesson
planning, inadequate student assessment, poor and untimely IEP management, and
“[s]trained professional relationships with the special education team that has caused
undue stress and hurt feelings.” J.A. 261. Nonetheless, the school sought to provide
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Smith with assistance in making the improvements she would need in order to keep her
job. For example, Jochems and McGraw met with her weekly with an ASL interpreter to
assist her in understanding and completing lesson plans, IEPs, and other issues. Other
employees were also assigned to assist Smith in preparing the IEPs and gathering
documentation for the Virginia grade-level assessment (“VGLA”) binders.
Nonetheless, Smith failed to make the necessary improvements. As a result,
Principal Jochems gave her a mid-year rating of “unsatisfactory,” noting that she had
failed to develop “a balanced approach to teaching American Sign Language . . . at a pace
that allows the children to reasonably advance.” J.A. 271. Jochems also criticized Smith
for not developing her students’ reading abilities and for creating tension with colleagues.
In the end, Jochems did not recommend that Smith’s contract be renewed. On March 1,
2010, the district superintendent informed Smith by letter that he planned to recommend
that the School Board not renew her contract.
In April 2010, Jochems reprimanded Smith again for numerous issues relating to
the VGLA binders containing students’ confidential IEP materials, the most significant of
which was that she took the materials home – a violation of state law and regulations.
Additionally, with the legal deadline for completion of the binders fast approaching and
with the binders not yet completed, the school cancelled approval of leave it had
previously granted for Smith to attend a conference. Smith nonetheless took sick leave
and secretly attended the conference. This was the last straw for Jochems, who asked the
superintendent to terminate her. Smith was terminated effective June 22, 2010.
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Smith subsequently filed suit in federal district court alleging three claims under
the ADA: failure to provide reasonable accommodations, retaliatory termination, and
wrongful discharge. Loudoun moved for summary judgment on all claims, and Smith
opposed the motion.
The district court denied Loudoun’s motion as to the reasonable-accommodation
claim but granted it as to the causes of action for retaliatory termination and wrongful
discharge. Regarding these latter two claims, the court concluded that Smith had failed to
come forward with facts or evidence to dispute or contradict several legitimate bases for
termination set forth by Loudoun and that Smith had failed to provide any evidence that
Loudoun’s proffered reasons for termination were a pretext for either retaliation or
discrimination.
The case twice proceeded to trial on Smith’s claim of failure to provide reasonable
accommodation. The first trial ended in a mistrial, and the second yielded a verdict for
Smith in the amount of $310.00.
II.
Smith now appeals the grant of summary judgment against her on her retaliatory-
termination and wrongful-discharge claims.
Upon review of the briefs and the record, and after consideration of oral
arguments, we conclude that the district court correctly granted summary judgment
against Smith on these claims, for the reasons stated in the district court’s thorough
opinion. See Smith v. Loudoun Cty. Pub. Sch., No. 1:15CV956, 2016 WL 659786 (E.D.
Va. Feb. 18, 2016). Accordingly, we affirm on the reasoning of the district court.
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AFFIRMED
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