West Jefferson Hills School District solicitor Ira Weiss testified Wednesday night that in August he advised Superintendent Terry Kinavey that the district could face legal action if it did not hire Denise Breisinger for an English and reading teaching job at Thomas Jefferson High School.

The testimony came during the seventh continuation of a termination hearing for Mrs. Kinavey, suspended in September after a district investigation determined she removed Mrs. Breisinger's name from a draft agenda and re-posted the job as an English-only position.

In response to questioning from Mrs, Kinavey's attorney, Ernest DeHaas, Mr. Weiss said his advice was given during an Aug. 13 lunch meeting at a restaurant at the Waterfront. He told Mrs. Kinavey that given the fact that Mrs. Breisinger was qualified, older than 35 and a female, the district could be sued if it didn't hire her.

He said he gave the same advice five days later before a special board meeting held to hire staff for the school year. But, the solicitor testified, in the end the decision was up to Mrs. Kinavey.

Mrs, Breisinger had made it through two rounds of interviews for the position and was among two finalists when the other candidate withdrew.

However, testimony from others in earlier sessions of the hearing indicated that Mrs, Kinavey did not want to hire Mrs. Breisinger and felt that a demonstration lesson she had given during her interview did not contain enough rigor.

Mr. Weiss also testified that Mrs. Kinavey detailed for him past issues she had with Mrs. Breisinger, including the fact that when she was assistant to the superintendent, Mrs. Breisinger went around Mrs. Kinavey and met with former Superintendent John Lozosky to ask why she was not hired for an earlier open position.

Despite those objections, Mrs. Breisinger eventually was named as the sole candidate for the English-only position and was hired Sept. 22 by the board, the same night Mrs. Kinavey was placed on administrative leave.

In November, Mrs. Kinavey was charged by the district with incompetency, immorality, intemperance and neglect of duty and was suspended without pay pending termination.

The district issued a 15-point statement of charges against Mrs. Kinavey, though last night, two of the charges in the statement were dropped. One involved an accusation that Mrs. Kinavey used the work of another professional for a professional development planner and technology plan.

The other was a charge that Mrs. Kinavey unilaterally revised district policies and authorized their posting on the district website without board approval.

Also among the charges are several accusations of plagiarism, including allegations that Mrs, Kinavey used the work of other superintendents in her welcome back letters in Aug. 2009 and submitted an article for district newsletter that actually came from a software company brochure.

Mr. Weiss said he was able to determine the sources of the work by searching the first few words of the pieces on the Internet search engine Google.

Under questioning by Mr. DeHaas, Mr. Weiss acknowledged that he did not investigate to see if the authors of the work gave Mrs. Kinavey permission to use it.

Mr. Weiss said no citations were given for any of the work.

The hearing will resume at 5 p.m. March 22 in the high school cafeteria.

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