Kiersten Moses

Introduction

Kiersten Nicole Moses is a former special-needs teacher at McNinch Elementary School in Moundsville, West Virginia, whose December 2025 arrest followed classroom-video allegations. State Police charged her after video allegedly showed her grabbing a 6-year-old nonverbal autistic student by the neck and squeezing. In July 2026, a grand jury indicted her on four felony counts of battery on a disabled child, one felony count of child abuse, one felony count of strangulation and two misdemeanor counts of maltreatment, and she pleaded not guilty that month. The case also produced failure-to-report charges against two administrators. Her employment with the district ended.

Background Information

Moses worked as a special-needs teacher at McNinch Elementary School — referred to in later court coverage as McNinch Primary School — in Moundsville, in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle. Her classroom included a 6-year-old girl who was nonverbal and on the autism spectrum — the child at the center of the allegations — and the district is led by Superintendent Dr. Shelby Haines. Little else about Moses’ personal history appears in the public record; the available reporting documents the allegations, her arrest, and the proceedings that followed.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Allegations. The claims in this section are allegations from West Virginia State Police criminal complaints and a Marshall County grand jury indictment as reported by WTRF, The Intelligencer and the Herald-Star. Moses pleaded not guilty; the charges have not been tried and she is presumed innocent. Her removal from the classroom is an established employment fact; the battery, child abuse and strangulation counts are unproven allegations.

According to the original criminal complaint filed in December 2025, a West Virginia State trooper began investigating after a complaint was made on October 8, 2025, alleging abuse of a McNinch student on September 18, 2025. The complaint alleges that Moses grabbed the 6-year-old girl, who is nonverbal and on the autism spectrum, by the neck with both hands and squeezed. The trooper reviewed classroom video and reported that he saw Moses interacting with the girl near a door in the special-needs classroom; the girl appeared to become agitated and advance toward Moses, and Moses allegedly reacted by placing both hands on the child’s neck and squeezing for about six seconds.

The incident was recorded on video, according to the complaint, and a school aide witnessed it and took the girl to the nurse’s office, where the nurse photographed red marks on the girl’s neck. The trooper also reviewed video from September 16, 2025, showing Moses standing behind the girl, grabbing her arms and pulling them criss-cross behind her back “in a needless and uncomfortable position,” according to the complaint. WTRF reported that the video was viewed by then-principal Jane Ann Duffy and county Special Programs Director Erin Michelle Cuffaro, and that the state Department of Human Services did not receive a report from school personnel until October 5 — beyond the 24-hour limit required of mandated reporters.

Prosecutor Joe Canestraro later said the investigation surfaced a second alleged victim: three battery counts stem from the original incident, the fourth from an alleged incident with a second student. Moses was arrested and charged in December 2025, and on July 16, 2026, the grand jury indicted her on the battery, child abuse, strangulation and maltreatment counts.

The reporting chain around the incident drew scrutiny of its own. Per the complaints against Duffy and Cuffaro, the aide alerted Duffy, who reported the incident to Cuffaro, and both reviewed the video. When the trooper asked Duffy why she had not reported the incident through the state Child Abuse Hotline, she showed him a text message from Cuffaro that read: “My day is crazy. She did put her hands on (the student’s) neck briefly. Please talk with her about this. Not a verbal reprimand at this point, but tell her to watch putting her hands on children when it is not necessary.” Cuffaro initially told the trooper she did not send the message — which appeared to have been deleted from her phone — and later admitted she had.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The charges drew sustained coverage, with WTRF, The Intelligencer and the Herald-Star tracking the case from the December arrests through the July indictments. Within days, Superintendent Haines announced that Moses was no longer a district employee, that Duffy and Cuffaro were not working while the district cooperated with investigators, and that retired CTE director Scott Varner would serve as interim principal. The district said in a statement: “Our top priority is educating children. We have been and will continue to collaborate with law enforcement, the WV Department of Education, and legal counsel.”

All three educators were arraigned and posted bond after the December charges. The July 2026 indictments widened the case: Cuffaro was indicted on nine felony counts of child neglect plus two misdemeanors, and Duffy, now retired, faces a misdemeanor failure-to-report count in magistrate court. Moses, for her part, resigned from her position.

Current Status

Moses pleaded not guilty on July 28, 2026, before Marshall County Circuit Court Judge Richard Wilson, entering the plea in a separate hearing from Cuffaro; the two are not being tried together. Her attorney is Braden Noon. Prosecutor Canestraro said the case would return to Wilson’s courtroom for a status hearing on September 17, 2026: “We come back for a status or scheduling conference on Sept. 17 at 9 a.m. to set any motions hearings or evidential hearings or to set a trial date.” As of The Intelligencer’s report, no plea deals had been discussed for any of the defendants. The charges against Moses remain pending, and she is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Moses’ teaching career in Marshall County is over: she resigned from her position, and the district confirmed in December 2025 that she was no longer an employee. She now carries six felony counts and two misdemeanor counts through the criminal court process, an unresolved posture in which the battery, child abuse and strangulation allegations have not been tested at trial.

Beyond her own case, the prosecution reshaped the school she left behind: McNinch Primary operates under an interim principal while the district cooperates with investigators, and the indictment of a principal and an administrator for allegedly failing to report has put the district’s mandated-reporter compliance under public scrutiny. For the families involved, the case stands as an account of a vulnerable child’s treatment in a classroom and the reporting failures that followed — with the criminal courts left to decide what happened.