By Mike Donoghue, Vermont News First

A version of this story first appeared in the Journal Opinion newspaper in Orange County.

BURLINGTON – A leading Blue Mountain Union School senior scholar says academic grades were manipulated by the school officials to cheat her out of winning a prestigious, four-year scholarship at the University of Vermont, according to a new lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.

Senior Abigail Emerson of Topsham said she alerted Blue Mountain 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.

Instead, a classmate, Karli Blood of East Topsham – and the daughter of Blue Mountain 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 last June, court papers note.

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

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

And now it appears Karli Blood is not intending to use the scholarship to go for free to UVM.  Blue Mountain announced two weeks ago to the local media, including the Journal Opinion and the Caledonian Record that Blood, as the second-top senior, plans to attend Belmont University in Nashville.

The school in Wells River village along the Upper Connecticut Valley announced Emerson is planning to go to UVM as valedictorian of the Blue Mountain class, which graduates on June 15.

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

Attempts to reach several defendants, including Scott Blood, Knisely, Blanchard and Gawel were unsuccessful.  Burlington lawyer Pietro Lynn eventually responded that the defendants do plan to contest the lawsuit.

“We are evaluating the matter and there are valid defenses.”  Lynn said it appears the defendants acted appropriately during the course of the incident.

Each defendant has until July 2 to file with the federal court their formal written responses to the lawsuit. 

Emerson is seeking 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, for an interview with Vermont News First, including why corrections are not accepted by the institution.    UVM chief spokesperson Adam White said in an email Jacobs was unaware of the dispute at Blue Mountain.

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

“Defendants Blood, Knisely, Blanchard and Hart knowingly violated BMSD’s policies regarding maintenance of academic records and its Scholarship nomination policy when they failed to timely correct and transmit Abigail’s transcript and to nominate Abigail,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit makes 10 separate claims, including negligence, gross negligence, negligent performance of services, negligent misrepresentation, and violations of both equal protection and due process.

Other claims focus on economics.  One claim is for injurious falsehood by financially impacting Emerson by claiming Blood was the top student.  Another claim is tortious interference with prospective economic advantage by making Emerson take out loans that she should not need.

Emerson maintains Gawel, Blue Mountain and OESU as defendants had a duty to establish adequate policies to avoid the problems listed in the lawsuit. 

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court outlines 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 showed Emerson had a 4.223 GPA and was ranked first in the class.

Emerson was aware the nomination from Blue Mountain 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.

The lawsuit, filed by Tarrant, Gillies & Shems of Montpelier, goes on to claim: 

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 go 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, who maintains she received multiple inconsistent answers, is chair of the Waits River Valley School Board, which covers Topsham and Corinth and is part of the OESU.

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 have 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 produced Blood as the winner.

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 scholarship, the lawsuit said

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