The state treasurer’s daughter received special treatment, said a student who took the same class.
Britany Thompson, senior business and math education major from Tolsia, W.Va., also took the Office Management independent study course with professor Laura Wyant of the School of Education and Human Services.
In May, Emily Perdue, daughter of John Perdue, West Virginia state treasurer and Robin Perdue director of the West Virginia Public Employees Grievance Board Director, received two incompletes from Wyant. Rosalyn Templeton, dean of the school, said she would be instructing Perdue’s remaining work in the summer and assigned two passing grades in September in place of the incompletes.
“It was a lot of work,” Thompson said. “There were about 25 chapters in that book, and we were supposed to have lesson plans that corresponded with each of the chapters. I worked on it probably six to eight hours a week.”
Thompson said Perdue did not attend any class meetings during the semester except the first and last class meetings, which she attended with her mother.
Thompson said after the first meeting, she and another student in the class met with Wyant on a weekly basis.
“Emily never came to any of these sessions,” Thompson said. “She came to the first one, and I didn’t see her again until the last meeting.
“Her mother was at both of the meetings that she attended,” Thompson said. “I assumed that (her mother) was just a non-traditional student; that’s not uncommon in the Adult and Technical Education program.
“She was taking notes, looking over the syllabus, just like she was enrolled in the class but come to find out it was actually her mother,” Thompson said.
Thompson said Emily Perdue did not take notes during the class.
Wyant said she took a week off in February.
“During that time I had communicated with Emily a little and she said that she’d actually dropped from the class,” Thompson said.
“I don’t think it was an extremely heavy load,” Wyant said. “However, it did cover the content, and if you’re going to be teaching that content, you have to understand the content.”
“There’s a lot of content to be learned about that,” Thompson said. “Of course there were times being overwhelmed because I was working, doing my level two clinical, and I had seven courses.”
Thompson said she felt that Perdue received special treatment.
Emily Perdue said she did not have time in the semester to do the work, nor would she have time in the summer to do the work, Wyant said.
“Dr. Templeton asked her why she would not have time in the summer in a very nice way,” Wyant said. Emily Perdue said she had to work.
“She didn’t even buy the book,” Wyant said. “She told us on that May 5th that she hadn’t even purchased the book.”
Templeton then asked another faculty member to take the textbook and make copies of it for Emily, Wyant said.
A second source confirms this.
“Rosalyn took the book and gave it to (the source), and (the source) came over and made copies of the first two chapters to give them to Emily because she didn’t have the book,” Wyant said.
Both Wyant and Thompson said the book required was inexpensive.
“I bought it on Amazon for $3.95,” Thompson said.
Staci Standiford can be contacted at standiford1@marshall.edu.
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