Less than three minutes. That’s how long the news conference announcing the scandalous exit of San Diego Unified’s superintendent lasted.
A four-month-long independent investigation found former SDUSD superintendent Lamont Jackson sexually harassed at least two former school district administrators. He walked away from the job with six months severance and his full pension benefits.
Since then, multiple internal warnings about Jackson have been made public. Those warnings date as far back as three years. In two instances, San Diego Unified didn’t investigate allegations that Jackson was exploiting the top job in the district to try to sleep with female employees. When the district did investigate an accusation, it didn’t share that information with key decision-makers.
For the first time since that became public, and since the district fired its superintendent after a sexual misconduct investigation, Board president Shana Hazan sat down for an on-camera interview about what went wrong.
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“I can understand why people are angry,” Hazan said. “I can understand that people are frustrated. I can understand that people are disappointed. And they have every right to be.”
Redacted school district records released to NBC 7 Investigates and other journalists reveal a lengthy timeline of sexual misconduct accusations. School board members only got copies of them one day before the district shared them with reporters.
“It’s clear that we did not have all the information that other members of the staff were aware of,” Hazan told NBC 7. “I was disappointed that that information did not come forward sooner.”
The first alarm
On Aug. 19, 2021, while Jackson was the interim superintendent, anonymous staff members at Bethune K-8 sent a letter to the San Diego Unified School Board. The letter accused Jackson of having an affair with the school’s principal, who the accusers said was unfit for her job and urged the board not to pick Jackson as the next superintendent.
The main author of that letter told NBC 7 Investigates they sent a copy of the letter to each school board member. Hazan wasn’t elected to the school board until the following year. However, at the time, Hazan was on the superintendent-selection committee. That committee, tasked with picking the school district’s top leader, never received a copy of the Bethune letter or any indication the district had hired an independent investigator to look into Jackson’s alleged sexual misconduct.
A district spokesman confirmed that San Diego Unified did not share the Bethune letter or news of the sexual misconduct investigation into one of the finalists with the selection committee.
Seven months later, in March 2022, the school board named Jackson as San Diego Unified’s new superintendent. At the time, Jackson was still under investigation for allegations of sexual misconduct detailed in that Bethune K-8 letter.
A couple months after Jackson’s promotion, a district lawyer sent him and the school principal accused of having an affair with him an email saying the investigation into the Bethune allegations didn’t turn up anything.
That the school board president is only now learning of serious, relevant allegations from three years ago is not lost on Hazan.
“I wish I would have asked the question when I came on the board, ‘Is there anything I should know? Is there anything that happened before I was elected that I should be made aware of?’ ” Hazan said.
Alarm bells within the district only grew louder after Jackson took the helm. In June 2023, San Diego Unified got an anonymous hotline report alleging the superintendent had sexual relations with two workers he then promoted.
The following month, the district received another letter, this one signed by a group of anonymous school principals. They accused Jackson of sexually harassing women he supervised and exchanging sex for promotions and job security.
The district neither investigated nor shared the hotline report, nor the principals’ letter, with the school board.
In a statement, a spokesman said at the time the district determined the allegations were based on rumors and speculation from third-party anonymous sources. He also said there was an assumption the principals’ letter was shared with the board, though the district now concedes that assumption was wrong.
“Moving forward, I will not assume that all the information is being proactively shared with me,” Hazan said.
Some school board members did know about the 2021 Bethune letter, but the district claims no one on the board knew about the hotline report or prinicpals’ letter until last month.
“I can’t speak to why or how the information did not come to the board more recently than two weeks ago, but what I know is that we now have processes and procedures in place to ensure that will never happen again,” Hazan said.
Specifically, Hazan points to a new district office tasked with investigations and accountability. In an email sent to NBC 7 Investigates following Hazan’s interview, she said the district has hired staff with Title IX experience and increased employee education surrounding sexual misconduct reporting.
“What has changed is that no one is assuming things anymore,” Hazan said, "that if there is a concern related to a senior leader that the board is made aware. And what I have noticed in recent weeks is the board is being made aware of those things in a way that we were not before.”
Questions about transparency from the district
Even after the district launched its latest misconduct investigation of Jackson, it hasn’t been particularly forthcoming.
San Diego Unified told NBC 7 the district had hired a law firm to investigate a personnel matter back in May but wouldn’t confirm that matter involved the superintendent until he was fired four months later.
The entire time he was under investigation, Jackson was allowed to stay on the job as superintendent. He was never placed on paid administrative leave, which is a recommended practice for investigations into workplace sexual harassment.
“We at no time had any concerns about keeping the superintendent on in his capacity as superintendent during the investigation period,” Hazan said.
And after the investigation found Jackson sexually harassed at least two former employees, the state’s second-largest school district was tight-lipped. San Diego Unified invited reporters to the district office for the school board’s announcement that it fired Jackson but officials did not take any questions. Also, that press conference was held on the Friday evening heading into the Labor Day holiday weekend.
During that news conference, Hazan raised some eyebrows when she expressed gratitude to Jackson for his leadership.
“Superintendent Jackson served this district for 30 years … and it was important to the board to recognize that service,” Hazan told us. “And we also needed to communicate that he was no longer fit to serve, and that it was no longer in the best interest of the district to move forward with him as superintendent. Both of those things were true to the board.”
Despite the findings from the independent investigation, the board fired Jackson “without cause,” enabling him to collect a six-month severance package of more than $260,000.
“It was really important to us that we could move forward through this transition as quickly as possible, stay focused on our top priorities and not get distracted by an issue that we believe is in the past,” Hazan said.
Jackson vehemently denied all allegations of sexual misconduct in a statement he sent to NBC 7. He said the characterization of him is “completely inaccurate” and that people who know him best know he would never behave in the manner alleged.
The district won’t release the full investigation
Board members and San Diego Unified spokespeople have repeatedly stressed the district’s commitment to transparency. However, the district has refused to release a copy of the entire independent investigation into Jackson.
“So there’s pending litigation related to that investigation so we have been able to share as much as we possibly can,” Hazan said.
There is no law prohibiting the district from making the full investigation public. In fact, earlier this year, the Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) Board of Directors released the full report from an independent investigation into the firing of a former MTS employee who claims she was sexually harassed by former MTS Board chair Nathan Fletcher.
Like MTS, San Diego Unified is facing two potential lawsuits tied to Jackson’s behavior. At least two former district administrators filed legal claims against the school district. Both women allege sexual harassment, discrimination, negligent hiring and retention.
Accusations against interim-superintendent Bagula
Those claims also make troubling accusations against the person the district put in Jackson’s place, interim superintendent Fabiola Bagula. The women allege Bagula made racist anti-white remarks in front of coworkers. Even more distressing, they claim Bagula knew about Jackson’s behavior, protected him, and harassed and bullied those women who rejected his sexual advances.
Despite the accusations, Hazan said, the board stands behind Bagula.
“I know that she is exactly the person that we need right now to lead our district,” Hazan said. “She’s not perfect. Nobody is perfect. She’s the first person to apologize if she makes a mistake. And as it relates to these claims, she has accepted responsibility. She has been accountable. I am so confident in her leadership.”
The independent investigation found no evidence Bagula mistreated employees, according to a statement sent to NBC 7 by the district spokesman. The “white-womaned” remark was “taken out of context,” but nonetheless Bagula has apologized to those offended.
And despite serving under Jackson as his No. 2, Bagula claims she never saw him act inappropriately. In a statement, she wrote, “When I became aware of the serious allegations against Dr. Jackson … I was deeply troubled.… I share the anger and outrage over these actions, which are completely intolerable.”
On Tuesday, Bagula signed a contract to lead the district as interim superintendent through mid-March. Hazan said the board hasn’t decided whether or not it will conduct a national search for a permanent replacement.
Earning back the trust
Hazan said she’s aware San Diego Unified has lost trust with the families it serves.
“I’m a mom," Hazan said. "I have two daughters in our school. There is nothing more personal to me than the education of our children.”
Hazan said the community can expect noticeable changes in how the board shares misconduct and sexual abuse investigation findings from now on.
“Actions speak louder than words,” Hazan said. “So I would say: Don’t take my word for it. Hold us accountable. Watch our board meetings. Watch the reports we provide.”
