CLEARFIELD – A judge has issued a decision in the case of the former employee who filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the Clearfield County Career & Technology Center.
Franklin W. Walk of Clearfield alleges in his complaint that he was fired for reporting that former Executive Director Elizabeth Frankhouser had inappropriate photographs on her work computer.
His case was discussed before Judge Fredric J. Ammerman on Jan. 10 with both sides presenting arguments.
In an order dated Jan. 12, Ammerman agreed with the CCCTC’s position that Walk’s complaint did not have enough specific information.
He did, however, give Walk 30 days to file an amended complaint “pleading with further specificity all factual and specific allegations with respect to the events” that led to the alleged violation of the state’s whistleblower law.
This includes a timeline specifying when Walk reported the information about the photos to the CCCTC, when he admitted to someone at the CCCTC that he was the one who anonymously submitted the photos to a board member and when Walk was fired.
Ammerman also agreed that Walk is not entitled to a jury trial because a letter listed in the complaint that allegedly explains the reason for his discharge was not attached. Walk was ordered to attach the letter to his amended complaint.
According to court paperwork, Walk had been a computer systems administrator at the school since October of 2004. Sometime in 2016, Frankhouser asked him to repair her computer.
He reportedly removed the hard drive, installed a new drive and then transferred all the information from the old drive onto the new one. He saved the old hard drive in a bin in his office with other older parts.
On March 19, 2017, he learned from other staff that Frankhouser was showing sexually explicit photos to other members of the staff on her cell phone.
At this point, he started to be concerned that there could be other inappropriate photos within the school’s computer system.
Because he did not want to risk exposing the school’s system or unintentionally add sexually explicit photos to the network, he took the old hard drive home and examined it on computer with no access to the school’s network.
He discovered pictures that were “not appropriate for a public school computer or for a public school employee to have on a school computer,” according to the complaint.
Walk determined the best way to inform supervisory individuals of the problem without risking his own job was to anonymously send prints of the images to the chairperson of the CCCTC operating committee.
Frankhouser’s computer was then inspected and she resigned immediately.
Walk says he did not admit he was the one who sent the photos because he was afraid of reprisal. But when he was confronted about it, he did admit to it.
He was then suspended and eventually fired for removing school property from the school.
Walk is seeking back wages, pension payments and other fringe benefits as well as counsel fees.
