by Mike Donoghue, Vermont News First

A version of this story appears in a recent Journal-Opinion.

A recent leading Blue Mountain Union School graduate, who maintains her academic grades were manipulated by the school officials to cheat her out of winning a prestigious, all-expense scholarship at the University of Vermont, has reached an out-of-court settlement, according to records in U.S. District Court in Burlington.

Abigail Emerson of Topsham will be paid $45,000 to settle the federal lawsuit that was filed in May shortly before graduation, according to public records obtained by Vermont News First.

Emerson plans to decline comment until all the paperwork is completed, according to one of her lawyers Stephen F. Coteus of Tarrant Gillies and Shems in Montpelier.

Defense lawyer Pietro Lynn of Lynn, Lynn, Blackburn & Toohey said — and the written settlement notes — the agreement represents a compromise to avoid litigation.

Emerson said in her lawsuit she alerted BMU officials about the miscalculation of her grade point average at the end of her junior year, and they reportedly made corrections on her official transcript to make her the top-ranked academic student in the class, the lawsuit maintains.

However, a classmate, Karli Blood of East Topsham — and the daughter of BMU co-principal Scott Blood — had her name submitted as BMU’s top student to UVM for the Green and Gold Scholarship just before the award deadline in June 2023, court papers note.

The Green and Gold Scholarship is awarded to only the single top senior student at each Vermont public and private high school as calculated at the end of their junior year. UVM maintained no changes can be made once a school has sent in the name, the lawsuit said.

The defendants named in the lawsuit were: BMU district; the Orange East Supervisory Union; Scott Blood and Emilie Knisely, co-principals at BMU; Dawn Blanchard, a BMU school guidance counselor; Jodi Hart, a BMU administrative assistant; and Randall Gawel, the OESU superintendent.

The settlement was hammered out during a six-hour mediation session on Sept. 9 with Early Neutral Evaluator Michael J. Marks of Middlebury.

Marks notified the federal court that a full settlement had been reached. Chief Federal Judge Christina Reiss agreed that day to dismiss the lawsuit, but said if the settlement is not consummated within 60 days, she will allow the parties to re-open the case.

Lynn filed a motion on behalf of the defendants to dismiss the lawsuit in June, but Coetus quickly filed his own motion disputing the request.

The two sides went to mediation before Reiss ruled on the motions or a hearing was scheduled.

Under the settlement terms, BMU officials agreed to correct another mistake made on Emerson’s transcript in her senior year. The school will add credit for a course “women’s literature” and list a grade of A minus for the second semester of her senior year, the agreement notes.

The school also agreed to provide Emerson a revised transcript once the change was made, court records show.

The lawsuit had generated interest across Vermont because of the stiff competition at every school to be the class valedictorian and the financial benefit that can go with being the top student.

The full tuition, four-year merit scholarship is worth more than $260,000 at UVM, according to the school’s website.

The scholarship also provides automatic admission to UVM’s highly competitive Honors College. Winners are recognized at a special awards dinner and receive numerous other benefits, the lawsuit said.

Blood eventually decided not to go to UVM and was planning to enroll at Belmont University in Nashville.

Emerson still enrolled at UVM, but did not get the benefit of a full free ride.

Emerson’s lawsuit had sought unspecified damages for violations of her rights, economic loss, emotional distress, along with punitive damages and legal fees from the defendants.

Attempts were unsuccessful to reach Jay Jacobs, vice provost of enrollment management at UVM, when the lawsuit was filed were unsuccessful. A UVM spokesman said the school was unaware of the dispute.

The lawsuit noted the defendants had a ministerial duty to maintain and keep accurate student records, including transcripts. The duties also required correcting errors promptly, the lawsuit said.

The federal lawsuit outlined the following sequence of events:

Emerson received her final grades at the end of her junior year on June 13, 2023. She had a 4.198 GPA and was ranked second in her class, according to a computer program known as Infinite Campus.

By June 18, 2023, Emerson had emailed Blanchard, the guidance counselor, identifying potential errors in a transcript.

The following day Blanchard and Hart, the administrative assistant, had corrected the errors resulting in a new, higher GPA for Emerson, the lawsuit said. The Infinite Campus platform showed Emerson had a 4.223 GPA and was ranked first in the class.

Emerson was aware the nomination from BMU for the Green and Gold Scholarship was due by June 30, 2023 and she believed she had won the spot.

Scott Blood reportedly told the parents of another child in July 2023 that the class rankings had changed the previous month, and that Emerson was now number one, the lawsuit said.

Emerson said she learned in September 2023 that she had not been nominated. Hart told Emerson’s mother, Stacy, that her daughter and Karli Blood had tied for the highest GPA and that it was broken by naming Blood the top student.

Stacy Emerson had a follow-up phone call with Hart and asked several questions, including whether and how GPAs were rounded, how many decimal places were used, what policy the calculations were based on. Hart did not provide any clear answers.

“On information and belief” Scott Blood directed Hart to tell Mrs. Emerson that the two girls had tied one decimal place — at 4.2, the lawsuit said.

The court papers went on to maintain the following:

After the discussions, on about Sept. 29, 2023, Abigail Emerson’s GPA was lowered without explanation even though no new grades had been submitted since June.

A check of the Infinite Campus computer program showed Emerson’s new GPA was 4.214, but that she was still ranked number one in the senior class.

Stacy Emerson met with Knisely, the other co-principal, and Blanchard, the guidance counselor about the scholarship nomination process. Emerson said she asked several times about how GPAs were calculated, including procedures for rounding or truncating and how many decimal places were used.

Emerson maintains she received multiple inconsistent answers.

During the meeting, Blanchard admitted she failed to notify UVM about the error in calculating Abigail Emerson’s GPA and failed to send her updated transcript to UVM after it was corrected in June 2023.

Abigail Emerson had a meeting with Blanchard and Knisely on Oct. 23, 2023. Blanchard stated the miscalculation was a clerical error and recommended the student hire an attorney.

The defendants stuck together and refused to disclose to Emerson or her family any criteria or procedures used to break the “supposed tie” between Blood and Emerson and how they came up with Blood as the winner, the lawsuit said.

Emerson applied to UVM and was admitted, but granted only a partial scholarship. Her admission shows she had the minimal qualification to win the Green and Gold, the lawsuit said.