Amagansett School Principal Maria Dorr could lose her job over a missing gift card

Maria Dorr in the lobby of her lawyer's office in Holbrook. The Amagansett school principal was suspended with pay last year after a gift card went missing. Credit: Elizabeth Sagarin
A gift card went missing from the Amagansett School before Christmas break in 2023 — and now the school's principal could lose her job over it.
The district is trying to fire Principal Maria Dorr after accusing the longtime educator of stealing the card. District officials have said in disciplinary proceedings that she broke the trust of the school community.
But Dorr, who was never criminally charged, has denied she stole the card. Her attorneys called the allegations “scandalous, defamatory and without merit.” They asked: Why would an educator of 25 years with an “unblemished record” steal a gift card worth $50 or less, putting her career and reputation in jeopardy?
After seven hearings — with more than 42 hours of testimony and 15 witnesses — the case could soon have a resolution. Attorneys for both sides filed post-hearing briefs on Jan. 17 and a state-designated hearing officer is expected to issue a decision within 30 days.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- The Amagansett school district is trying to fire principal Maria Dorr after accusing the longtime educator of stealing a gift card.
- Dorr has denied the allegations. She was never criminally charged.
- A hearing officer is expected to issue a decision soon, following 42 hours of testimony in the case.
The hearing officer, Timothy Taylor, instructed the witnesses not to speak about the case. But unlike most disciplinary hearings, Dorr chose to make hers public. This has allowed a rare glimpse into a process that is typically shielded from the public eye.
Newsday reviewed more than 1,000 pages of hearing transcripts and a reporter attended the last two hearings. What has emerged are different interpretations of what took place on the Friday the card went missing and what followed.
Administrative charges filed
The Amagansett school system is one of the smallest on Long Island, with about 120 students in prekindergarten through sixth grade, all housed in one building.
So when an Amazon gift card in a red envelope disappeared on Dec. 15, 2023, the news ran through the district "like fire," as one attorney put it during the hearings.
A parent and her child, a student, brought the card to school as a gift for occupational therapist Christina McElroy. According to testimony, a receptionist placed the card in McElroy's mailbox but when she checked it, the card was nowhere to be found.
An investigation ensued and Richard Loeschner, then the district's interim superintendent, determined that Dorr had taken it. Dorr, 51, who earned $215,764 in 2023-24, was suspended with pay last January. In February, Loeschner filed administrative charges against her, accusing her of misconduct in a disciplinary proceeding known as 3020-a.
McElroy, meanwhile, reported the card missing to East Hampton police last January, according to an incident report Newsday obtained. Police chief Michael Sarlo said McElroy later notified the investigating officer that she wanted the case to be closed. Sarlo said his agency took no further action.
The district's disciplinary case continued, and from July through November, attorneys for the district and Dorr presented their cases to Taylor. The cost to the district was not known, as Amagansett has not provided legal invoices Newsday sought through an open records request.

The Amagansett School. Credit: Google
The district's case
The district’s key witness was Loeschner, who investigated the matter. He testified at four hearings.
At the time the card went missing, Loeschner had been working in Amagansett for a few months. The retired Brentwood superintendent had taken over after Superintendent Seth Turner left in October 2023.
Loeschner’s role as Amagansett's schools chief ended in June and Michael Rodgers, a physical education teacher and former co-president of the Amagansett Teachers Association, is now superintendent.

Richard Loeschner in March 2023. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
Before the alleged theft, Loeschner said he had a “terrific” working relationship with Dorr and called her “a competent administrator,” according to hearing transcripts.
But in retrospect, Loeschner said he found Dorr’s behavior after the incident “odd.” The card was reported missing on a Friday, but he said Dorr didn’t mention it to him. He first learned of it from Rodgers the following Tuesday, he said.
He recalled telling Dorr: “When someone comes to you and says that a Christmas card was stolen, your first reaction is not to cover it up. Your first reaction is, 'Oh my God, let me look into this and see what I can do,' ” according to the transcripts.
Much of Loeschner’s investigation centered on video camera footage that captured who went in and out of the school mailroom.
Front desk receptionist Cassie Butts testified that on the morning of the alleged theft, the student handed her the card for McElroy.
The card’s exact value was unclear, but the student's parent testified it was worth either $25 or $50.
At 8:24 a.m., the video footage showed Butts going into the mailroom with a red envelope and leaving without one. Butts testified that she left the card in McElroy’s mailbox.
Roughly 13 minutes later, the footage showed, Dorr was the next person to go into the mailroom and was seen leaving with a red envelope.
Dana Kalbacher, Dorr’s secretary, had entered the mailroom nearly half an hour before Butts and the district contended that she cleared out Dorr’s mailbox, as she said she typically did.
Loeschner testified that Dorr initially showed him a red Shell gift card, which he said he was "thrilled" to see because he was looking to “exonerate” her. But when he spoke to the student who Dorr believed had gifted the card, he said he learned the child hadn't given it to Dorr.
Loeschner said he then learned that a sixth grade teacher had received a $50 Shell card from a parent who worked at the gas station in late November at a teacher-parent conference. The parent’s boyfriend testified that he and his girlfriend brought two cards to the conference and gave the second one to Dorr.
Loeschner said Dorr later presented him with a red Christmas card, which she said she found in her recycling bin. Loeschner took the envelope; the greeting card inside was unsigned.
“I had no other explanation. I chased down every possible lead Maria gave me,” Loeschner said.
The defense's case
Dorr’s attorney, Arthur Scheuermann, who is general counsel of the School Administrators Association of New York State in upstate Latham, called Loeschner’s investigation “shoddy.”
Scheuermann and his co-counsel, Brian Deinhart, pointed out “inaccuracies” in dates and times in Loeschner’s report. The district called them “inconsistencies.”
“The investigation was not fair, certainly was not impartial or complete,” Scheuermann said in his opening statement. “What I know from the evidence I have seen is that every aspect of the accusation and the subsequent investigation was a set-up to get Maria Dorr."
Under cross-examination, Kalbacher, Dorr’s secretary, testified that she was not certain she cleared out Dorr's mailbox. She could have been distracted from chatting with a staffer or missed an envelope stuffed in the back of the mailbox, she said.
Scheuermann and Deinhart also attacked Butts' credibility.
According to the hearing transcripts, Deinhart cited a report in which an investigator “recommended that the administration [counsel] Ms. Butts about the various retaliatory statements” she made in 2019 against former superintendent Turner and cautioned her against “making exaggerated and/or unsubstantiated claims against School District personnel in the future."
Loeschner said under questioning that he believed Butts. Butts, who retired in February, testified that she had no incentive to lie.
Dorr’s attorneys also brought in character witnesses and introduced years of performance reviews Dorr had received since she became principal in 2015.
Two parents whose children attended the school testified. One called Dorr “the heart and soul of the school” and another said it seemed “ludicrous” to her that Dorr would take a gift card.
Dorr had excellent performance reviews and Amagansett in 2023 was named a Blue Ribbon school by the U.S. Department of Education. Loeschner testified that to his knowledge, Dorr had no disciplinary record.
Dorr’s attorneys also noted that she had welcomed a police investigation into the missing card.
They suggested the alleged theft was “orchestrated” by the teachers' union. They noted it was Rodgers, then union co-president, who first told Loeschner of the missing card. Rodgers, according to Loeschner’s testimony, wrote down the time stamps of the video footage that showed Butts leaving the mailroom and Dorr entering it for Loeschner on a piece of paper.
Rodgers did not testify and declined to comment.
The final witness was Dorr herself.
Dorr testified what she took out of her mailbox that Friday was a red envelope with an unsigned holiday card and a Shell gift card inside. She said she assumed the card came from the same student whose parent gave her the first Shell card at the teacher-parent conference.
She also addressed what Loeschner called her odd behavior. Dorr recalled learning from Butts of the missing card and telling her to give it some time for the card to show up before getting the superintendent, the school board and attorneys involved.
She noted that McElroy never reported to her that her card was missing, which McElroy confirmed when she testified.
“It's a school," Dorr said. "Things go missing all the time. Books are missing. Hats are missing, gloves. … Folders are misplaced. Copies are misplaced. It happens.”
Asked why she didn’t look into the matter the following Monday, she said, "I had another busy day. There were more pressing items that were related to the students that I prioritized that day.”
The missing card was never found.