San Diego Unified School District hires law firm to conduct ‘human resources investigation’ – NBC 7 San Diego

The San Diego Unified School District has hired a Los Angeles law firm to conduct an internal investigation, but the school district will not say what the investigation involves. The Voice of San Diego reported that the internal investigation is focused on Superintendent Lamont Jackson.

NBC 7 contacted SDUSD and a spokesperson told us in an email: “The district is prohibited from commenting on personnel matters.“We have also contacted all school board members and the district’s teachers union, but none have commented on the investigation.”

The law firm Sanchez & Amador, LLP’s contract states that the county has hired the firm through April 10, 2024, to represent it “in sensitive internal investigations” at an hourly rate of up to $540. At a public school board meeting on April 30, 2024, the school board approved the contract at an estimated cost of $100,000.

The contract states that attorney Lupe Valencia will have primary responsibility for the investigation. According to the law firm’s website, Valencia “led and/or supervised hundreds of internal investigations involving a variety of employment-related claims, including harassment, discrimination, whistleblower retaliation, code of conduct violations, and alleged deceptive business practices…”

Jackson is named in the lawsuit filed by SDUSD police officers

Although we don’t know if there is a connection, Jackson is mentioned in a lawsuit that 11 police officers filed with SDUSD last December. They are suing the district, Jackson and the SDUSD police chief for retaliation, negligence, discrimination and sexual harassment.

In the complaint, one of the 11 officers, Robert Lozano, says Jackson retaliated by intimidating Lozano’s girlfriend, an elementary school teacher in the district. Lozano says Jackson “came in in the middle of class and sat in the back of the classroom during class to intimidate her. Remarkably, the principal of the school where she taught had no idea that Jackson was even on campus, nor had he ever set foot on that campus in the past. Afterwards, Jackson gave Lozano’s girlfriend an unwelcome hug and told her class she was great. even though the two had never met before that day.”

We asked the district spokesperson about this allegation in the complaint and received the same response – “The district is prohibited from commenting on personnel matters.”

Jackson was hired in 2022. He previously served as interim superintendent for nearly a year. Born and raised in San Diego, Jackson attended district schools before eventually working there and working his way up through SDUSD.

As the state’s second-largest school district, SDUSD enrolled more than 95,000 students for the 2023-2024 school year. The majority of student households, 56%, reported income below the federal poverty line. Hispanic students made up the largest portion of the student body at 45%. Nearly a quarter of SDUSD students are white, 10% are Asian, 9% are multiracial and 7% are black.