Demoted Principal Socks District With $5-Million Claim

Rita Jorgenson, a former principal whose demotion in June caused a community uproar, has filed a $5-million legal claim against the Huntington Beach City (Elementary) School District.

The claim alleges that four of the school board’s five members violated the state’s open-meetings law, the Brown Act, when a majority agreed to demote her.

Gary Burgner, assistant superintendent for the district, declined comment Monday on Jorgenson’s claim. “It would be inappropriate for us to comment on a claim filed against the district,” Burgner said, but he did say he will ask the board to reject the claim.

Jorgenson was principal of Hawes School, on Yellowstone Drive in Huntington Beach, until June 14, when the school board, meeting behind closed doors, decided to reassign her as a classroom teacher.

The school board did not explain its reasons and at first released only her Social Security number--not her name--in announcing the reassignment.

The action produced angry denunciations of the board by scores of parents who attended the public part of the meeting. Those parents, who said they had heard rumors the board might remove Jorgenson as principal, had urged the board to keep her at Hawes.

James G. Harker, a Costa Mesa attorney representing Jorgenson, said the claim against the district alleges “that the secret action of the Board of Trustees in demoting her from her position as principal was wrongful . . . in that it was taken unlawfully in violation of the public policy of the state of California as embodied within the Ralph M. Brown Act.”

Harker’s office said that if the school board rejects the claim, he will file a civil suit in Jorgenson’s behalf.

The claim accuses all school board members except Robert Mann of “causing the injury, damage or loss” to Jorgenson. Mann reportedly opposed the move to reassign Jorgenson last June. The four who voted for her demotion were board members Karen O’Bric, Sherry Barlow, Pat Cohen and Gary Nelson.

The claim also names District Supt. Diana Peters and Asst. Supt. Ron Brown of being among those “employees causing the injury, damage or loss” to Jorgenson.

Jorgenson, who has been working this fall as a teacher at an unnamed school in the district, had been an administrator in the Huntington Beach City School District for 13 years, the last 2 as principal at Hawes.