Lexington-Richland School District 5 has dropped its lawsuit against a former superintendent after its accrediting agency announced it will not pursue a complaint.

The district’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously to drop the lawsuit on Sept. 26 after voting 4-3 on Sept. 13 to continue it.

The lawsuit against Dr. Stephen Hefner was initially pursued in response to an “untrue and frivolous” complaint to Cognia, the district’s accrediting agency, initially published in The State newspaper, District 5 Board Chair Jan Hammond told the Chronicle.

Reached by the Chronicle, Cognia did not offer comment before the paper’s Oct. 4 deadline.

The complaint regarded the hiring of Akil Ross, now the district’s permanent superintendent,  when he was brought on as interim superintendent in 2021 and the fact that his contract involved HeartEd Youth Zone, a nonprofit organization formed by Ross, to which members of the board have financial connections.

The members of the district board along with Ross found out about the complaint through The State’s reporting, Hammond said.

According to The State, the complaint brought by Hefner was supported by two other former superintendents and two past board members.

Hammond said some of these past superintendents and board members later reached out to Ross to say they did not have all the facts and did not choose to be part of it.

The board chair, who voted Sept. 13 to continue the suit, sent a statement to the Chronicle:

“Dr. Hefner filed a frivolous and factually incorrect complaint with District Five’s accrediting agency Cognia. He also published the complaint with the State newspaper without first contacting Dr. Ross or me. It appeared to be done in such a way to discredit our great district. After consulting with our legal counsel we as a board were advised to bring a lawsuit against an untrue and frivolous complaint to protect our accreditation. Cognia refused to act on the complaint which was filed. This was because the complaint was incorrect. While the State published the original complaint it failed to report that no action was taken by Cognia.

“With the District’s accreditation protected, the board took reasonable action and dismissed the lawsuit. The District acted reasonably to protect itself from an untrue complaint that threatened to harm our accreditation. We are committed to educating the students of D 5 and not spending money on lawsuits that were no longer necessary.”

Reached later by phone, Hammond, who is a school teacher in a neighboring district, talked about how she viewed this complaint from an educator’s perspective.

“Being a teacher, I know the importance of accreditation credentials,” she said.

“We need every dollar that goes to the classroom, and we need all positive energy going toward our schools,” she added. “There are so many, so many mental health problems. We’ve got programs to combat that and we’re doing so many good things for the kids in district five. And for somebody to just want to, you know, make up stuff that’s wrong, just to put us in a bad light. It bothers me.”

She said the board pursued its suit against Hefner to protect themselves and with the hopes that he would retract his statement and apologize, currently no apology has been received.

“It wasn’t the right thing to do. It wasn’t the right way to do anything. It was just the wrong way to proceed,” she said of how Hefner approached the complaint. “If you care about this district, why would you want to hurt the district?”