Witchy season has come early this year: Halloween is around the corner, Agatha All Along is on Disney+, and an out special needs education director in California is suing her former employer after a member of the district’s board of trustees allegedly accused her of being a “witch” in an “LGBTQ coven.”
“I want justice, and I want accountability, but most of all, I want it to stop, and I want there to be some awareness that it’s happening,” Rose Tagnesi told San Diego’s KGTV of the alleged discrimination that led to her lawsuit against Grossmont Union High School District (GUHSD).
Related:
As KGTV reported earlier this week, Tagnesi claims she faced harassment and retaliation for opposing the district’s “anti-LGBTQ agenda.” She says that at one point during her 28 years working for the district, she was told to “keep a low profile” and warned that if members of the district’s board of trustees learned she was a lesbian, they would not approve her promotion.
Stay connected to your community
Connect with the issues and events that impact your community at home and beyond by subscribing to our newsletter.
Tagnesi told KGTV that she kept quiet about her sexuality for most of her career and, in that time, received glowing performance reviews (including her most recent), multiple promotions, and was named Administrator of the Year in Special Education in 2022 by the Association of California School Administrators.
It’s unclear how or when board trustees learned that Tagnesi is a lesbian. But her suit alleges that board member Jim Kelly referred to Tagnesi and another female staffer as “witches who were part of an LGBTQ coven.” Kelly also allegedly implied that Tagnesi only hired the other staffer, who reported to her, because “she is hot.”
Kelly denies the allegations.
Tagnesi says she was put on paid administrative leave in August 2023, pending the outcome of an investigation of her conduct and performance. Her lawsuit characterizes the investigation as a “witch hunt” aimed at “finding any reason the Anti-LGBTQ Majority Board could push Ms. Tagnesi (and other personnel who did not align with the so-called ‘East County Values’) out of GUHSD.”
“I’ve never been told what I did. I’ve never been told what I was accused of doing. I’ve never been even asked a question,” Tagnesi told KGTV.
As them notes, Tagnesi was put on paid leave the same month that the GUHSD board voted 3-2 to cut ties with a mental healthcare provider over its LGBTQ+ services, which include referrals for gender-affirming care. One board member said the district needed to find a provider that better reflected “East County Values.”
Tagnesi resigned from her position with GUHSD in February. Her lawsuit characterizes her resignation as a “wrongful constructive discharge,” alleging that her “workplace environment was so infected with discrimination” that she had “no choice but to resign from GUHSD because of the hostile working conditions.”
As The Advocatenotes, Tagnesi’s resignation came three years after the kidnapping of a special needs student at Santana High School in Santee, California, where Tagnesi was special education director. In March 2022, 32-year-old Rodolfo Emmanuel Ledesma pleaded guilty to multiple sex crime charges related to the abduction of the then-16-year-old student. Ledesma was reportedly accused of luring the student to his RV in January 2021, where he kept her for five days. In March 2022, the student’s mother claimed in an interview with KUSI that “there was an incident that started at school with a peer and an administrator that ultimately perpetuated all of this,” but would not provide further details.
Tagnesi and three other school staffers, including principal Timothy Schwuchow and vice-principal Larry Oedewaldt, were demoted from administrative to classroom positions in the wake of the incident, according to East County Magazine. At a GUHSD board meeting in February of this year, the student’s father alleged that there had been a “cover-up” around his daughter’s kidnapping.
It’s unclear whether the investigation referenced in Tagnesi’s lawsuit was related to the student’s kidnapping, but in June, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that GHUSD had relied on the results of “a secret personnel investigation” to demote multiple administrators, including Schwuchow and Oedewaldt, to classroom teaching positions this past January.
According to the paper, GHUSD has refused to disclose what the investigation was about.
In a May lawsuit, Schwuchow and Oedewaldt accused the district of violating state transparency laws and their rights to due process. Like Tagnesi, they claim they have been kept in the dark about the allegations against them and the reasons for their demotion.
