A former West Marin School principal and the Shoreline Unified School District superintendent signed their names to a settlement last month, putting to rest a two-year feud.
Matt Nagle, who served as the principal from 2012 until 2018 when he was demoted to a kindergarten-through-second-grade teaching post, received a check for $700,000 from the school district. In exchange, he waived allegations of retaliation and defamation brought against the district and superintendent Bob Raines, and he resigned.
“The board and I are looking forward to putting our attention and energy to other matters that are of importance to our district and to our students,” Mr. Raines told the Light this week.
A substitute teacher is helming the younger grades Mr. Nagle taught at Bodega Bay School while the district looks for someone to finish out the year and fill the post permanently.
Mr. Nagle, a former Fairfax resident, moved last month to Palo Alto, where his wife and son had already relocated. Robert Jaret, a San Rafael lawyer who represented him in settlement discussions over the past year, said, “We are glad that the school district decided to resolve this, so they can move forward, so Matt can move forward.”
In the complaint filed in Marin County Superior Court last May, Mr. Jaret argued that the district had taken retaliatory action for Mr. Nagle’s 2018 bid to unseat incumbent Mary Jane Burke from her position as county superintendent of schools.
Mr. Nagle ran on a campaign of closing the achievement gap for Mexican American students. He was publicly critical of Ms. Burke, who had held her position for six four-year terms, and who ultimately won 79 percent of the vote.
Following the announcement of his intent to run, Mr. Nagle found his job performance under evaluation by the school board. His lawsuit—which cited multiple state labor codes, the Ralph M. Brown Act, and streams of emails turned over by several public records requests—alleged there was a correlation with the campaign.
The suit argued that Mr. Nagle should be reinstated to his position and that he was eligible for compensation, including backpay for the $50,000 salary cut he suffered when he was moved to Bodega Bay and compensatory and punitive damages.
Although the settlement states that the district and Mr. Raines deny any wrongful or improper action, Mr. Jaret this week persisted there was merit to all of the original claims. “As you can see from our complaint, Matt was subjected to defamation and demotion in response to running for public office,” he said. “All of sudden after six years, he was declared insubordinate and unprofessional. It’s very sad that a public entity would do that to someone who is working so hard for the community.”
Over the past year, Mr. Nagle regularly attended school board meetings, criticizing the board during public comment. He raised a range of issues—academic performance, access to classroom supplies and textbooks, and the board’s minutes. He targeted individual trustees and tensions ran high. The most constant and passionate theme was that the district was leaving Mexican American families behind.
“The board acts without concern for the majority of Mexican Americans,” Mr. Nagle said this week. “The [trustees] don’t listen to them, don’t act on their concerns or complaints. They have regularly ignored the pleas from families who speak out at board meetings, who say they feel unheard—and feel discriminated against.” Mr. Nagle said reform was needed on the school board. The first step, he said, was the appointment of a Mexican American trustee.
Data shows a significant gap in achievement within the district. Based on the results from last year’s standardized testing, Shoreline continues to see a disparity in scores between its white and Latino students, reflecting statewide trends. In language arts, 68 percent of white students and 27 percent of Latino students passed the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, known as the CASPP. In math, the district tested worse: 46 percent of white students and just 16 percent of Latino students met standards.
For Shoreline’s entire student body, which is 60 percent Latino, scores have gone down in the last five years by 2 percent in language arts, and by 12 percent in math. In the last round of testing, the district’s level of achievement was 7 percent below the state average in language arts and 12 percent below in math.
Shoreline has made equity a central focus of its mission, with equity teams at each school. The teams are in the process of identifying groups of students and barriers specific to them; students are looked at not just by their demographics, but also by characteristics like transportation needs and interest levels. Marin Promise Partnership has launched two action teams in West Marin, one for kindergarten readiness and the other for college completion.
“With regard to student achievement, we are really working hard,” Mr. Raines said this week. Two public workshops, one held yesterday in Tomales and another set for March 10 from 6 to 8 p.m. at West Marin School, are discussing district data on achievement, attendance, discipline, college readiness and student engagement.
For Mr. Nagle, it’s been a difficult two years, while he looked unsuccessfully for another education job in Marin. “Before [the suit], Matt offered to settle for zero monies if he was reinstated,” Mr. Jaret said. “To get demoted mid-year, to go from a principal to a kindergarten teacher overnight, makes it look like he did something very bad.”
When Mr. Nagle’s job was first under review, trustees denied any correlation with his campaign against Ms. Burke. Instead, a preliminary administrative evaluation from March 2018 accused Mr. Nagle of “arrogance,” “disrespect for portions of the community,” “increased failure to assume leadership” and “increased failure to participate as a member of the district team.”
The board met resistance at that time from the school community, and some came to Mr. Nagle’s defense. In April 2018, parents petitioned, delivering a vote of no confidence in Mr. Raines and the school board.
As far as the stipulation in the settlement agreement for Mr. Nagle to leave immediately, Mr. Raines said, “I think that both sides felt that was the best resolution.”
The settled money will come out of the district’s general fund reserve, which at last tally had around $5 million.
Mr. Nagle criticized the district for writing him a check rather than reinstating him. “It has the feel for not having a concern for spending the public’s money. It seems flippant, and [is in keeping with] how they handled the whole affair,” he said.