At the Feb. 4 San Dieguito Union High School District special board meeting, the main focus, deservedly so, was to decide whether to make ethnic studies optional for this fall rather than mandatory.
But it was the second item on the agenda that caught my attention.
It was an item asking the board to approve the promotion of San Dieguito employee Nathan Molina from assistant principal at Carmel Valley Middle School to assistant principal at Torrey Pines High School, effective Feb. 10.
Just an ordinary matter of business, one might say. The item received little to no attention and was approved by all board with no discussion.
But not that long ago Molina was a central figure in a special education case that needlessly cost the district hundreds of thousands of dollars and put one family through misery for nearly three years.
To summarize, in 2022 a special education student who aged into San Dieguito as a seventh-grader was assigned by the student’s SDUHSD case manager, Nathan Molina, to attend the San Diego Center for Children (SDCC), a non-public school (NPS) that primarily serves students with behavioral and emotional issues.
This was his only recommendation, despite the objections of every other member of the student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) team which consisted of Molina plus five individuals from the student’s prior NPS school (Excelsior Academy), a parent advocate and the student’s parents.
“We were looking for a school with students who didn’t have behavioral issues,” said the child’s mother, Kelly Ogawa.
Ogawa said SDUHSD wouldn’t back down – no discussion, no other options.
“The district’s case manager basically told them, ‘Your options are, you can sue us,’” said attorney Matthew Storey who represented the family.
So they did. Twice. And won both times.
To the courts
The first case, held at California’s Office of istrative Hearings (OAH), centered on whether during the 2021-2022 school year the school district predetermined placement at SDCC.
Predetermination means a school was selected without considering the IEP team’s input. The are supposed to reach a group decision.
Court records from the OAH hearing included the following points:
— Documents indicate that all of the IEP team, except Molina, stated at the January 24, 2022 IEP meeting that SDCC was not an appropriate placement and that “placement at SDCC would be bad for Student due to the behaviors of the other children enrolled there.”
— Court documents also state that Molina did not retreat from his decision “to offer Student placement at SDCC, even though it was undisputed Student’s anxiety was triggered when exposed to noncompliant conduct of others, which was likely to occur at SDCC.”
— The court found that Molina’s “inconsistent testimony was uned, and neither credible, nor persuasive” and that he “disregarded the opinions of all the other IEP team .”
Although the OAH decision ed the family and found San Dieguito at fault, Ogawa said a settlement agreement was delayed by the district over what she characterized as unreasonable demands. So the family was forced to go back to court for relief.
The second court case, filed in Sept. 2023, was heard at the federal level at the U.S. District Court of Southern California, presided by Judge Marilyn L. Huff.
Court records from this second case included the following points:
— “Due to her anxiety, Molina determined that K.O. [student] needed an NPS with an embedded therapeutic program. Other of K.O.’s IEP team, including Parents, Parents’ advocate, and Leyva [principal at student’s prior NPS school] were shocked at the offer of SDCC and disagreed with Molina that K.O. needed an embedded therapeutic program. At the IEP meeting, all of K.O.’s IEP team expressed the opinion that SDCC was an inappropriate NPS.”
— [The OAH judge] determined that Molina’s disregard for other IEP team ’ opinions that SDCC was an inappropriate placement for student and his failure to propose other alternatives constituted a “take it or leave it” offer … [and] concluded that Molina failed to properly collaborate with the team by summarily rejecting any NPS other than SDCC.
The federal court ed the OAH opinion that Molina and Tiffany Hazlewood, former SDUHSD employee who worked as the district’s director of special education at the time, were not persuasive or credible and were found to be “disingenuous and unreliable witnesses.”
This decision, released April 23, 2024, confirmed the prior OAH decision “in its entirety” and “found a significant amount of fault” with the school district, which was represented in court by attorney Sarah Sutherland of Orbach Huff & Henderson.
The costs
After losing twice, the district then threatened the family with a third court case, this time to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
But common sense finally prevailed, and a settlement agreement was reached on June 21, 2024, granting the family its demands: (1) assignment and payment for placement of the student at an appropriate NPS school through graduation (which was determined to be The Winston School in Del Mar), (2) reimbursement of tuition costs that the family had been paying directly to The Winston School since 2022, and (3) attorneys’ fees to represent the family.
The reimbursement and ongoing tuition costs for the non-public school are required to be paid by the district by law, so that expense would not be counted in the total amount of money the district wasted over this pointless litigation.
What is included in the waste of public money are $174,000 the district was required to pay the family’s attorney (which would have been zero had the district complied with the family’s initial request) and more than $251,000 paid to the law firm the district hired to fight the family.
That totals more than $425,000 of public money thrown away for nothing – although this amount is incomplete according to a district spokesperson who said at the time that more invoices were expected.
Last October I asked to see these additional costs for legal expenses pertaining to the following three relevant cases:
— OAH case # 2022020209
— District Court for Southern District of California, case # 22-cv-01703-H-BGS
— Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, case # 24-3286
Rather than the district responding to me directly as before, my request was forwarded to the law firm of Fagen Friedman & Fulfrost (F3) which is on retainer for the district for $85,000 per month for unspecified services.
F3 denied my request, citing a number of lame and commonly used objections:
— It’s private information of third parties in ongoing legal matters (even though the settlement agreement had been finalized).
— No records exist and the district would have to create new records. (Perhaps one of the dozens of San Dieguito’s capable high school computer science students can easily instruct the district’s ing department how to sort and select for this simple fix.)
— And my favorite: “The district is entitled to withhold information when the public interest served by not disclosing the documents outweighs the public interest served by disclosing the documents.”
I interpret that last excuse to mean that the district would be embarrassed to reveal how much more taxpayer money the district squandered on these frivolous lawsuits. The lack of transparency by withholding what should be public information is inexcusable.
This is but one example of law firms treating a school district’s general fund as a cash cow, particularly regarding special education.
We’re talking about actual money, but there’s no way to calculate the cost of pain and suffering, lost wages to engage in the fight, and sleepless nights that the family had to endure, as the district continued to prolong its indefensible position.
No consequences
This is a scandalous example of a broken system where common sense and good judgment were overruled by bad advice, lack of comion, irresponsible fiscal oversight and a litigious culture.
“I don’t understand this board,” Kelly Ogawa told me last year. “Do they not care about special education families? Do they not understand how they impact families and children? Do they not feel obligated to spend taxpayer money on children rather than attorneys?”
Did the istration know these details and choose to not just ignore but to reward someone who was at the heart of a special education family’s heartache?
I asked all five board , Molina, Torrey Pines High School principal Rob Coppo, and Mary Anne Nuskin, SDUHSD’s associate superintendent of human resources, for comment.
“Perhaps there were some mitigating circumstances that I’m unaware of, that may have diminished or lessened his role in these legal matters? All I have to refer to at present is what the court records show,” I wrote to them in an email.
The only response I received was from the district’s communications coordinator who wrote in an email, “While we cannot comment on the approval process for employment or personnel matters, we can share that Mr. Molina has been with the district for over 22 years, is currently in his sixth year as a site , and was identified as the successful candidate for this position. We are confident that he will provide a meaningful contribution to the Torrey Pines community.”
Molina is not an elected official and might by some be considered off-limits for scrutiny. But he is a public employee and that makes what happened both disappointing and frustrating.
In a letter sent to parents on Feb. 5 announcing Molina’s selection as the new TPHS assistant principal, Torrey Pines principal Coppo wrote, “Everyone who has worked with Nathan over the years will tell you that he is honest, hard working, funny and collaborative” and he commended his “unique brand of intelligence and genuine care.”
I think that “genuine care” and “collaborative” are not words the Ogawas would use to describe Nathan Molina. Nor anyone else familiar with this example of a system’s failure to protect students and safeguard public money.
Opinion columnist and education writer Marsha Sutton can be reached at [email protected].
Marsha Sutton is a columnist and presents her opinion. Column: Combines reporting, storytelling and commentary to make a point. Unlike reporters, columnists are allowed to include their opinions.
