School district pays $115K settlement to former elementary principal

LACONIA — About 18 months after former Pleasant Street School Principal David Levesque’s employment contract in the Laconia School District was not renewed, the district paid him a settlement of $115,000. 

Levesque was the principal of the elementary school for nine years and was one of 13 administrators who left the district during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years; turnover which included every principal and assistant principal. 

The agreement was born from both sides’ “desire to compromise, settle, buy complete peace from, and terminate any and all known and unknown disputes, claims, controversies, demands, actions, causes of action, and litigation.” The parties attended mediation and the agreement was reached, it states, to avoid litigation.

According to the settlement, Levesque “alleged liability on the part of the Laconia School District ... with regard to his employment,” for which the district “den[ies] all liability, wrongdoing, and responsibility.”

In addition to releasing the district from any liability in the separation of employment, the settlement also states it “shall not in any way be construed as an admission by the [district] that they acted wrongfully with respect to [Levesque] or any other person.”

The $115,000 is to be split evenly three ways, with just over $38,000 going toward alleged compensatory damages, alleged unpaid wages and Levesque’s attorney fees and costs. The final signature on the document is dated Oct. 16.

“We respect and appreciate the work of Primex to bring closure to this matter,” Superintendent Steve Tucker said in response to a request for comment. Primex, or New Hampshire Public Risk Management Exchange, is the district’s insurance company.

As required by the terms of the agreement, Levesque responded to a request for comment with the statement, “The matter has been resolved.” School Board Chair Jennifer Anderson declined to speak about the settlement for this story.

Levesque worked in the district for two decades including his time at PSS. The school was named New Hampshire Elementary School of the Year by the NH Excellence in Education program in 2017, and Levesque was named New Hampshire Principal of Excellence  in 2018.

The district’s annual deadline to inform administrators about their contracts for the following school year is April 15. In 2022, before a school board meeting on April 19, word had spread that Levesque’s contract would not be renewed.

At that meeting and a following meeting on May 3, hundreds of people attended or tuned in via Zoom. Public commenters, including students, spoke on Levesque’s behalf, pleading with the board to, if not renew his contract, tell them why.

Throughout the spring of last year, the school board, the superintendent and Levesque remained mum about his nonrenewal, citing the confidentiality of personnel matters.

In interviews with The Daily Sun in April and May, former administrators said Levesque was one of two employees who Tucker retaliated against after their participation in an independent lawyer’s investigation into employee complaints against him. 

In a copy of the investigation's report obtained via a public records request, the investigator found Tucker had retaliated against two administrators in the form of negative performance reviews, but it does not identify them.

Since departing Laconia, Levesque has been the principal of Franklin High School. He is also the current president of the New Hampshire Association of School Principals. 

Per the state’s right-to-know law, “every agreement to settle a lawsuit against a governmental unit, threatened lawsuit, or other claim, entered into by any political subdivision or its insurer” is kept and available for viewing at the municipal clerk’s office — in Laconia, the city clerk’s office at City Hall — for 10 years.