A lawsuit filed by a former special education administrator for the Grossmont Union High School District says an anti-LGBTQ+ majority of the East County district’s board of trustees forced her out of her position through discrimination, harassment and retaliation because she is a lesbian. Rose Tagnesi’s lawsuit, filed last month in San Diego Superior Court, alleges that as the result of a secretive investigation, the board demoted her from a top administrative post to a teaching position, leaving her “no choice but to resign.” The principal at Santana High School and an assistant principal at Monte Vista High School have also sued, saying they too were demoted by the board following the same investigation. A fourth administrator was also demoted as part of the investigation. The three who have sued say they have not been provided a copy of the investigation or even been told the allegations and charges against them. Tagnesi’s lawsuit also alleges harassment and discrimination, including claims brought under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. “The Anti-LGBTQ Majority Board’s adverse action in retaliating against Ms. Tagnesi, conducting a discriminatory and pretextual investigation of Ms. Tagnesi, subjecting Ms. Tagnesi to a discriminatory environment, and demoting Ms. Tagnesi, was not based on any legitimate reasons,” the lawsuit alleges. “Rather, it was because Ms. Tagnesi is a lesbian, engaged in protected conduct, and was the victim of the Anti-LGBTQ Majority Board’s discriminatory campaign.” Tagnesi’s lawsuit says she resigned in February, about a month after she was told she was being demoted from the district’s top special education job, which she had held since 2010, to a classroom teaching assignment. “The working conditions were so intolerable a reasonable person in Ms. Tagnesi’s position would have had no reasonable alternative except to resign,” the suit alleges. A district spokesperson said the district does not comment on pending litigation. The district and its five-member board are the named defendants in the case. Jim Kelly, one of three trustees that Tagnesi says are anti-LGBTQ+, also said it’s the board’s policy not to comment on pending litigation. “However, these allegations are false,” he told the Union-Tribune in an email. “Anyone can make any accusation against anybody but that does not mean the allegations are necessarily true. After these allegations are fully litigated, I am confident that the District and the various parties who are being accused will be fully vindicated.” Tagnesi says her demotion was related to a December 2020 incident involving a Santana High School student. The matter was the subject of an investigation by the district that initially closed in 2022, the lawsuit alleges. “Ms. Tagnesi had virtually no involvement in the incident as she was not directly involved, and there was no wrongdoing found concerning Ms. Tagnesi,” her lawsuit says. The same incident was the subject of a lawsuit filed against the school district and several district employees by the student’s family in 2022. Tagnesi was not mentioned or named as a defendant in the lawsuit, which described the girl at the center of the Santana incident as a special education student with deficient social skills and significant cognitive, emotional and mental health needs. The lawsuit alleges the girl ran away from home weeks after another student, a standout athlete and the son of a teacher, helped her install a social-media app on her phone and convinced her to send him nude photos that he then publicized. The suit alleged that school administrators failed to protect her and failed to properly respond to her complaints of harassment and bullying, causing her emotional distress that prompted her to run away and become a victim of sex trafficking. The school district settled that lawsuit with the girl’s family for $400,000, with the board approving the settlement in February 2023. That same month, the board reopened an internal investigation into the Santana incident, this time with an outside attorney who Tagnesi alleges was aligned with the three trustees she says are anti-LGBTQ+. Tagnesi alleges that she had previously objected to the hiring of the attorney, reporting her concerns to then-Superintendent Mary Beth Kastan that his hiring “was a conflict of interest, an act of retaliation, and due to her being gay.” She said both Kastan and the superintendent of human resources did nothing to investigate her complaints. On Jan. 23, Tagnesi says she received a letter from the superintendent informing her that the board would meet in a closed hearing two days later to discuss the results of the reopened investigation. On Jan. 25, she says she was informed the board had voted 3-2 to demote her “to a classroom teaching position or other non-management certificated position” effective June 30. The three who voted to demote her were Kelly, Robert Shield and Gary Woods, who the lawsuit alleges make up the board’s anti-LGBTQ+ majority. According to another lawsuit filed against the district in May, Santana High Principal Timothy Schwuchow and Monte Vista High Assistant Principal Larry Oedewaldt, who previously worked at Santana, were also demoted as part of the same investigation. Oedewaldt had been named as a defendant in the Santana student’s 2022 lawsuit, while Schwuchow was not named as a defendant nor mentioned in the suit. All three administrators allege they were not told what charges they faced, were given no chance to refute the allegations and have not seen any documents pertaining to the investigation. The Union-Tribune filed a public record request for a copy of the district’s investigation report in March. The district denied that request in April, citing attorney-client privilege. The mother of the student from the Santana incident that sparked the investigation and demotions told the Union-Tribune on Friday that she was legally limited in what she could say about the incident because of a confidentiality agreement. But she said her family requested the second investigation after the first one was closed. Without naming any of the administrators who were disciplined, she said they were “all very well aware” of what led to their demotions. The student’s father told the Union-Tribune in a text message, without naming Tagnesi, that her claims that she was fired over her sexual orientation amount to a “blatant effort to distract from the truth.” Marlea Dell’Anno, one of the attorneys representing Schwuchow and Oedewaldt, wrote in a text message Friday that the “district continues to drag its feet in providing reasons and evidence to back up the demotions.” She added: “In truth, certain trustees abused their power to smear our clients after they blew the whistle on district malfeasance. We are confident that the judge and jury will see that trustees responded by maliciously smearing our clients, who want their day in court and will reject any district offer to buy their silence.” Tagnesi’s attorney, Aaron Olsen, said his client has had “an outstanding career” and there was “no legitimate reason to get rid of her.” He said that in addition to damages and answers about her demotion, Tagnesi wanted to shed light on what she says was widespread anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination by Kelly, Shield and Woods. Her lawsuit points out that Kelly and Shield led the board’s effort 16 years ago to pass a resolution endorsing Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California. It alleges all three trustees hold anti-LGBTQ+ views and have been emboldened in recent years by the nationwide backlash against LGBTQ+ people. The suit also alleges this animosity has led the district to ban books with LGBTQ+ content, sever a decades-old relationship with San Diego Youth Services because it offers specialized services to LGBTQ+ youth and cancel district training programs that included content related to the LGBTQ+ community. The lawsuit says the discrimination against Tagnesi stretches at least as far back as 2015, when she said the board learned of her sexual orientation in connection with a personnel matter at one of the high schools. Around that time, the lawsuit alleges, Kelly started to refer to her and another administrator as “‘witches’ who are part of an LGBTQ ‘coven.’” According to her lawsuit, when the board allegedly forced an employee under her to resign in 2016, the attorney close to the three board members texted another school official: “One down and one to go.” Tagnesi says that same attorney led the investigation that resulted in her demotion. Woods and Shield did not respond to messages seeking comment. Tagnesi’s lawsuit seeks restitution, attorneys’ fees and compensatory damages, including past and future unpaid wages, loss of wages and benefits and emotional-distress damages.