A Poway Unified high school senior softball player has sued the district and its leaders, accusing Superintendent Marian Kim Phelps of pursuing a campaign of punishment and harassment against her and her teammates because she believed they didn’t clap loudly enough for her daughter at a banquet.
Phelps, meanwhile, has denied the allegations and said her daughter was being bullied by another Del Norte High School student leading up to and after the event.
The lawsuit filed Monday gathers into one 93-page document a host of accusations that have been publicly leveled by parents, students and coaches against Phelps and other Poway Unified leaders in recent weeks.
The school district has not yet been served the lawsuit, Poway Unified spokesperson Christine Paik said in an email. The district does not comment on existing litigation, she added.
Phelps, who has been superintendent since 2017, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. She has denied the allegations in communications to district employees and to the press.
Several of the allegations are related to the Del Norte softball program’s end-of-season awards banquet that was held in May. Phelps’ daughter, Jessica, then a junior and a pitcher on the team, was awarded most valuable player at the banquet.
The plaintiff on whose behalf the lawsuit was filed, a minor identified only as Jane Doe, was also a pitcher on the team. The lawsuit alleges that the superintendent bullied the plaintiff because of a perceived rivalry between the plaintiff and Phelps’ daughter.
Softball players, parents and coaches have alleged at board meetings that Superintendent Phelps harassed players in the weeks following the banquet in an effort to get them to admit that they had conspired not to applaud Jessica. For example, they have accused her of texting and calling another player late on the night of the banquet.
Marian Kim Phelps, superintendent of Poway Unified School District.
(Courtesy PUSD)
The lawsuit includes phone screenshots that appear to show a text message Phelps sent to that student: “I think at this point some are trying to cover up their poor behavior and are not being truthful. But it is what it is and we will follow up on our end from an administration standpoint.”
The suit points to a district policy that says employees should not contact students personally “with no legitimate educational purpose” without including the students’ parents.
“Superintendent Marian Phelps has repeatedly exhibited inappropriate interactions with plaintiff and other students, followed plaintiff online, and others persistently, and intimidated plaintiff and other softball student-players,” the suit says.
In early June, a Del Norte staff member interviewed the plaintiff as part of an investigation into an allegation that the plaintiff bullied Jessica Phelps, according to the lawsuit.
In July the principal told the plaintiff and her parents that the investigation found she had committed not bullying, but potential “borderline bullying,” according to the lawsuit. The district has not released a report of the investigation, which the lawsuit says had concluded by early July.
The lawsuit alleges Del Norte pressured the plaintiff to sign a document effectively admitting to bullying the superintendent’s daughter and threatened otherwise to revoke several privileges, including her ability to play softball, participate in other extracurricular activities and walk at graduation.
The lawsuit, as well as parents and coaches at board meetings, have accused the Del Norte investigation of being skewed in favor of the superintendent. Two of the school’s softball coaches have said that none of the coaching staff were interviewed.
In mid-August, the plaintiff submitted a 135-page complaint to the school board alleging harassment by the superintendent and other administrators, along with video of the banquet and 26 witness statements, the lawsuit says. The district rejected that complaint in October.
In an email to district employees this month, Phelps denied the allegations against her, saying she has never threatened students and did not attempt to influence Del Norte’s investigation into its softball program.
Jessica Phelps, daughter of Poway Unified Superintendent Marian Kim Phelps, speaks at a Nov. 15 special school board meeting.
(Kristen Taketa / San Diego Union-Tribune)
On Nov. 15 the board held a special closed-session meeting to discuss pending litigation and an evaluation of the superintendent in light of the softball issues.
During public comments, Jessica Phelps said she had experienced bullying in the softball program for months prior to the banquet, and that Del Norte had begun investigating even though neither she nor her mother had asked it to.
“This was never about getting enough applause at a softball banquet. Rather this is about how you feel being bullied, being yelled at in front of my teammates and being publicly humiliated and targeted for months leading up to and during the softball banquet,” Phelps said. “All of my experiences with bullying were validated through this investigation process.”
At the end of the meeting, the board said it would launch a third-party investigation. Board President Darshana Patel also accused some members of the public of “making misinformed claims” about students and employees and said the board had reviewed hundreds of pages of documents.
Patel added that while the board can’t discuss student or employee matters publicly due to privacy laws, the board “took action within the purview of our authority regarding employee conduct.”
The student’s lawsuit named Poway Unified, Del Norte High, Phelps, three administrators and all five board members as defendants. The lawsuit accuses them of violating the plaintiff’s free speech rights and calls for, among other things, protecting her ability to participate in extracurricular activities and monetary damages for pain and suffering.
The lawsuit also calls for a restraining order to prevent Phelps from contacting or coming within 10 yards of the plaintiff or her immediate family.
