Sexual harassment, complaints of reprisals against the Chairman of the Board of Directors Roil San Diego Charter School – San Diego Union -Tribune

At least three current and former employees of the most beautiful school in American charter in San Diego have filed complaints of sexual harassment concerning the president of their school board, Roosevelt Blackmon, since last June, including a complaint from the title IX filed on Wednesday.

An employee alleges that the board of directors, while he was under the direction of Blackmon, drags his feet by attacking complaints. Another complainant said that the Commission had placed it on leave in retaliation a few days after reporting harassment; She no longer works for school.

The board of directors of the Charter school, which Blackmon has led as president since April of last year, has not taken measures to date to respond to complaints.

It has been about four months that an external investigator supported most of the allegations formulated by one of the complainants, the deputy director Dolores Medina, according to a letter of December to Medina concerning the conclusion of the investigation by the interim executive director of the school, Kathleen Dougherty.

The law firm who organized the survey does not provide the full report of the results to the board of directors or to Daugherty for reasons of confidentiality, said Daugherty.

Friday, in a statement to San Diego Union-Tribune, Blackmon said: “There are always two sides with each story. Part of what you have obtained so far, it is information mixed with disinformation and disinformation.”

“I put the shoulders of the two secondary administrators that a lot of hard work should be done to keep the viable (high school),” said Blackmon about two of the complainants.

He denied allegations in the complaints of the other two people.

Blackmon joined the school board of directors with 400 students about a year ago. He is also co -president of the School School School School School Council Council in San Diego, a council that meets families, community and school staff and the district to discuss school issues.

The raft of complaints against Blackmon – which includes a federal complaint on discrimination, a complaint of reprisals for the employment of the State, a complaint and letters of the title IX sent to the School Board – present a potential legal responsibility for the school, which has already been on rocky land in recent years while it is trying to withdraw from a structural financial deficit and decline in the decline.

This month, while more complaints have surfaced, the board of directors may consider withdrawing Daugherty and one of the four members of the board of directors, according to a order of age for a special meeting scheduled last Thursday. This meeting has since been postponed.

Daugherty refused to comment on the plans of the board of directors. Blackmon refused to comment on why the abolition of these two people was put on the agenda.

Medina, the assistant director, said that she thought that the board of directors to consider deleting the executive director and the board of the board of directors constitute reprisals. She said that she had decided to talk about her own complaint for sexual harassment this week after learning the planned meeting of the board of directors.

“I can no longer remain silent,” said Medina. She also requests the withdrawal of Blackmon.

If the Board of Directors removes Daugherty and the member of the board of directors, this could provide more turnover and disruption for the school.

The Board of Directors, which currently has four members, has asked eight members to resign or remove since January from last year, according to Daugherty. The board of directors put its executive director on leave last year after the members of the community protested at the time its plans at the time to close the high school, and since then it had two acting executive directors.

Meanwhile, Daugherty, who became active director in August and is supposed to direct the school until June, is leading the school’s selection of a new permanent executive director and has helped direct the efforts to meet the school’s financial and operational challenges.

Medina said she worried about the school again. “We barely survive,” she said.

The complaints of the three employees all allege a similar behavior by Blackmon, including comments and sexually suggestive, inappropriate and reprisals for them.

The names of women, the names of others and several details have been expared in copies of the complaints examined by the Union-Tribune.

Complaints allege that the inappropriate behavior of Blackmon began after acquiring the title of president.

Women say Blackmon frequently called them by phone and visited them frequently on campus, taking hours of their time in one day. If they did not return his calls or said they had to leave, Blackmon got angry with them, said two of the women.

They say that Blackmon made them questions and personal and inappropriate comments, such as talking about his love life, asking them for relational advice and making comments on their appearance.

“You are really pretty … when you make up and you dress well,” said a woman told her. Another said he had asked for her age and why she likes to wear boots and dresses.

Medina said that during a budget meeting on June 17 with other staff members, Blackmon told the group: “If Ms. Medina was single, she would go out with me.” Medina, uncomfortable, said that she raised her hand to which she wore her wedding ring and said that she was fortunately married.

The women also said that Blackmon told them that he had control of their employment status and their salary. Two women said that he said, as chairman of the board of directors, he “can draw all your asses” and that he threatened to reduce their salary by tens of thousands of dollars.

An employee said that Blackmon had comment on the fact that her son got a new mother-in-law, whom she understood to refer to herself, and she told him to stop. Five days later, she said that Blackmon told her that he would dock his salary of $ 30,000 and made a remark that her son obtained a new half-brother, whom she interpreted as a reference to her own son.

“This comment made me uncomfortable,” wrote the employee in her complaint. “His statements made me feel as if he controlled my salary and my future.”

America’s Finest also received an anonymous complaint against Blackmon dated July 26, 2024 from someone who says that she had used a co-hail application as a passenger in a car driven by Blackmon. She asked for anonymity in the letter, saying that she was afraid that Blackmon would ride against her, noting that she knows where she has lived since he had come to her house.

In an interview, Blackmon said the complaint was a complete fiction and that Lyft told her that she had investigated and found her false.

A Lyft representative told the Union-Tribune that he was unable to locate a counterpart report.

In her letter, the complainant alleged that Blackmon had asked him several inappropriate questions.

“I can tell you that you are a beautiful Latina, can you talk to me in Spanish?” His complaint alleys that he said. It also alleges that he asked: “Are you almost 25 years old? Because you look quite mature.”

The next day, she said that she had seen Blackmon in her car driving near her house, where he had already collected her. “It really scared me,” she wrote.

The complaint was addressed to Lamont Jackson, who was then the Superintendent of San Diego Unified and who was the subject of an investigation for distinct sexual harassment allegations at the time. The complainant wrongly thought that Blackmon was a district employee.

San Diego Unified spokesman James Canning said that the district had received the letter and had transmitted it to the school’s legal advisor to Charter. Canning said that the district informed the District administrators and the trustee of the Board of Directors in charge of the Lincoln Cluster and “confirmed that nothing similar was going there”.

Daugherty said that the board of directors of the Charter School had decided not to act on the complaint because the name of the driving company was not identified in the letter and because it was anonymous.

Originally published: April 5, 2025 at 5:00 a.m.