Are the San Diego Unified School District’s elected leaders aware of bad conduct and dysfunction — or are they happy to be kept in the dark by a staff bent on self-preservation? Does the district have an internal culture that sees protecting the jobs of adult employees as much more important than what’s best for students and the community? The revelations of the last two months demand answers to these stark questions.
The first came Aug. 9 with release of a report by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights that presented appalling evidence that the district had failed to adequately respond to all 253 formal allegations of students being sexually harassed and/or assaulted from 2017 to 2020 — every last one. Incredibly, the district didn’t seek to protect student victims from further harassment. The report raised profound doubts about Cindy Marten, who was superintendent during that time span before leaving the district in 2021 to become U.S. deputy education secretary. Given that her successor, Lamont Jackson, was a longtime district executive, he too held blame for this outrage.
But since then, evidence has finally reached the public that shows Jackson himself engaged in grossly inappropriate behavior. On Aug. 30, the school board voted unanimously to fire him after reviewing a report compiled by an outside investigator showing that he had fired two district employees, Monika Hazel and Tavga Bustani, after they rejected his sexual advances. And on Sept. 23, the release of public records sought by the media showed that at least three other specific allegations against Jackson had been made from 2021 to 2023. But it wasn’t these allegations that led trustees to investigate Jackson — because they say staff never mentioned them. Instead, the probe began after veteran board member Richard Barrera heard directly from Bustani in April.
It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that elected leaders sometimes want to be out of the loop. That’s because if they don’t know about gross misconduct, the public won’t either. To counter this suspicion, trustees should be infinitely more vigilant going forward — at least until voters show them the door.
