MARION, Iowa (KCRG-TV9) -- The teacher of the kindergarten class at Starry Elementary, Diane Graham, who oversaw a room where at least three of her students were sexually abused by an in-classroom volunteer will return to work on Wednesday for the Marion Independent Community School District. Graham had been out on paid administrative leave since November 2016.
Marion Schools superintendent Chris Dyer tells I9 Graham will be working at Vernon Middle School with 5th and 6th graders. It is not clear in what capacity she will be working with students.
Graham was found not guilty of failure to report by a jury in Tama County in January. Graham remains a co-defendant in a lawsuit, along with the school district, filed in early February over sexual abuse at the hands of the then 15-year-old volunteer.
Logan McMurrin, 16, was convicted of sexually abusing three kindergarten students at Starry Elementary during the 2016-2017 school year. A judge sentenced McMurrin to the state training school in Eldora back in May 2017.
The district has already paid out $2.7 million to four families after they filed lawsuits alleging sexual abuse and settled. Graham and the school district were both listed as defendants in those cases.
A fifth lawsuit against the district filed in August also still remains unresolved. That lawsuit claims in 2015, the volunteer, who at that time worked in the classroom of Starry teacher Sara Sievers, had molested another student.