Simi Schools Settle Suit Alleging Sex Harassment

The Simi Valley Unified School District has negotiated a tentative settlement of a lawsuit that accused a high school principal of sexually harassing a staff psychologist for two years until she accepted a demotion to escape him, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

Attorneys in the lawsuit refused to disclose the financial terms of the agreement, but the psychologist who brought the lawsuit, Sara Kopman-Davis, described the amount as “real substantial, especially for a school district.”

“Settlement-wise, I’m satisfied, but money isn’t what I wanted,” said Kopman-Davis, who filed suit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. “I wanted him reprimanded. As far as I know, he has never been reprimanded.”

Allegations Denied

The chief defendant, Apollo High School Principal Brad Greene, declined to comment. His attorney, J. Jane Fox of Ventura, said he denied all the allegations and that the pending settlement should not be considered an admission of guilt.

Greene was accused in the lawsuit of making sexually explicit remarks to Kopman-Davis as part of an effort to seduce her, of touching and grabbing her, and of giving her a poor evaluation in the spring of 1987 after she repeatedly rejected him--including rebuffing his advances at a professional conference in San Francisco, said her lawyer, Julia Dragojevic.

Fox and the school district’s attorney, Donald F. Austin of Oxnard, said the settlement agreement still had to be signed by Greene, as well as school district officials, to become final, and that those signatures were expected “within the next few days.”

Austin acknowledged that under the terms of the agreement, three school district officials were to be dismissed as defendants--Supt. John Duncan and two assistant superintendents, Allan Jacobs, who is in charge of curriculum, and Robert Marcus, who was in charge of personnel and has since retired.

Kopman-Davis and Dragojevic claimed that she took her complaints about Greene to the three officials and received no action except for an offer to transfer to another school. She said Monday that she finally accepted a transfer in the fall of 1987 from Apollo High School, the district’s alternative high school for problem students, to Royal High School, the district’s main high school.

In accepting the transfer, Kopman-Davis said she took a demotion from school psychologist to guidance counselor, accompanied by a $4,000 cut in salary.

She filed suit in August, 1988, after filing a complaint with the state Fair Employment and Housing Board and being told it could take years to resolve, according to Dragojevic. The suit named as defendants Greene, the school district, the three district officials and the school board, the lawyer said.

District Administration

Austin said the district administration had investigated Kopman-Davis’s claims in good faith “but had very little to go on” because she did not provide any corroborating evidence. He said she was given the chance to provide names of witnesses or other sources during each meeting with the officials and did not, leaving the district little choice but to offer her a transfer.

“They didn’t know who to believe,” said Austin, who described both Greene and Kopman-Davis as respected employees. Greene, 48, has been employed by the district since 1967, and Kopman-Davis, 32, since 1981, Dragojevic said.

School Board President Lewis Roth said that Greene had never been reprimanded for sexual misconduct, and that the board had no plans to discipline him or Kopman-Davis.

During the course of the litigation, three women gave sworn statements on Kopman-Davis’s behalf that they also had been sexually harassed by Greene while employed as teachers at the school, according to Kopman-Davis and her lawyer.

One of the witnesses testified in a deposition that she had had a five-year sexual relationship with Greene and that after she ended it, the principal threatened to end her teaching career, according to Dragojevic. That woman and a second witness have since left teaching, according to Dragojevic, who said the third witness still works for Greene.

Fox declined to discuss the allegations against her client. According to Austin, the district’s attorney, Greene claimed that the allegations were made in response to an evaluation he wrote of Kopman-Davis, faulting her work.

Greene said Monday that he is still employed by the district as principal of Apollo High School, which serves about 300 students.

Supt. Duncan did not return a reporter’s phone calls Monday. Board member Diane Collins refused to comment.