Sausalito Marin City School District teachers are seeking answers after a draft document surfaced offering the superintendent a new contract in exchange for dropping allegations of a hostile work environment.<\/p>\n
Nathan Scripps, president of the Sausalito District Teachers Association, filed a Public Records Act request with the district on April 22 seeking all communications since Jan. 1, 2025, that refer to allegations of harassment and discrimination lodged against the district by the superintendent, LaResha Huffman.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to try to get a better understanding of the context in which these allegations were made,\u201d Scripps said.<\/p>\n
Huffman\u2019s allegations were part of a document titled \u201cagreement and general release\u201d that was included with an unrelated item on the April 14 board of trustees\u2019 closed session agenda. The document was sent out on the public notification mailing list.<\/p>\n
The document and related issues were referenced by four speakers during public comment time at the board meeting. Following state code protocol for public meetings, the trustees did not respond to the comments.<\/p>\n
Huffman said the document\u2019s inclusion in the board packet was a clerical error. Huffman and the five trustees all declined further comment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t think of anything to share since discussions have been in closed session and it\u2019s illegal to share that information,\u201d trustee Bonnie Hough said. \u201cI understand that the draft agreement was confusing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nixon Diaz, a spokesperson for the district, said it is working with its legal counsel on responding to the Public Records Act request. The district has 10 days from the date of the request to respond.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause the matter involves personnel privacy and privileged materials, the district cannot comment at this time regarding the information,\u201d Diaz said. \u201cIf information is required to be disclosed under the PRA, the district will comply with its legal requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the draft document, the allegations of hostile work environment started on Nov. 13. That was the date of a board of trustees meeting where members of both the teachers union and the classified workers union presented results of a joint survey.<\/p>\n
In the survey, 80% of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the administration and wanted Huffman replaced when her current three-year contract ends in June.<\/p>\n
The draft document states that Huffman would agree to waive all existing and future claims against the district about harassment, discrimination or the alleged hostile work environment \u201cin exchange, in part, for an agreement to extend Huffman\u2019s employment upon such terms as deemed appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n
In February, trustees voted 3-2 to extend Huffman\u2019s contract for two years. Trustees who voted for the extension said they wanted to maintain stability in the district. Huffman has been superintendent for three years.<\/p>\n
Lauren Walters, one of the trustees who voted against the contract extension, said recently that it is important to him that a superintendent have the support of staff and the community. He said he does not feel the administration has that support.<\/p>\n
Ellen Franz, a former district teacher and longtime district advocate, said she was shocked to see the draft document. In particular, Franz noted the description of what appeared to be a proposed agreement to release all claims in exchange for the contract extension.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just stopped me cold,\u201d Franz said during public comment. \u201cI don\u2019t have any idea of the context of this, but if we\u2019re at the point as a district that attorneys are writing this kind of a document for the superintendent, this doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about the way this looks,\u201d Franz said. \u201cOur divisions are now more like chasms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Resident Marilyn Mackel said a number of people sent her copies of the document after the agenda was sent out. She said the content of the document goes against the previously stated goal of \u201ccreating a world-class school district, where everyone is smiling all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t continue to have this kind of energy operating in our community,\u201d Mackel said.<\/p>\n
Scripps, who also spoke during public comment at the April 14 meeting, did not mention the draft document specifically, but focused instead on the high turnover rate of teachers in the district, including for next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cStability is what we were told to expect,\u201d Scripps said, referring to the talks earlier this year when Huffman\u2019s two-year contract extension was granted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see six roles turning over this year,\u201d he said. \u201cThat, to me, doesn\u2019t mean stability.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sausalito Marin City School District teachers are seeking answers after a draft document surfaced offering the superintendent a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[7,15,181,23,8529,992,8530,100,180,993,266,101,103,102,3624,8531,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-297560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-california","tag-education","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-marin-city","tag-marin-county","tag-marin-schools","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-north-bay","tag-northern-california","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sausalito","tag-sausalito-marin-city-school-district","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}