School District Agrees to Settle in Suit Filed by Instructor : Education: Capistrano Unified offers to correct civil rights violations and pay back wages to teacher who claims she was victim of age discrimination.

The Capistrano Unified School District has agreed to correct civil rights violations and provide $12,000 in back pay to a veteran high school teacher who claims that she was harassed and discriminated against by top administrators for almost a decade.

In a closed-door session Monday night, the school board voted to settle a bitterly contested civil rights complaint brought by Ruth Geis, 64, an award-winning English instructor at San Clemente High School with more than 30 years in the classroom.

If approved by the U.S. Department of Education, the settlement offer could end years of controversy and lift an administrative law judge’s ruling that threatened to withhold millions of dollars in federal funds from Capistrano Unified for discriminating against Geis.

“I can’t be jubilant about a decade of ordeal,” Geis said Thursday in reaction to the offer. “On the other hand, I applaud the leadership role of Dr. (James A.) Fleming, the new superintendent, which he demonstrated in working out a settlement.”

Fleming said the district lost a major battle in July, 1991, when the U.S. Department of Education, concluding that the district had violated Geis’ civil rights, threatened to hold up the federal funds.

“It has been hard and litigious,” Fleming said. “We want to settle this so we do not have to jeopardize the $1.65 million (a year) in federal grants. That money supports everything from migrant children to special education. Those kids who receive services would have lost out if we did not settle.”

Geis’ troubles began in 1981, when district officials transferred her from a high school to a junior high. Geis, who was 55 at the time, sued, contending that the district discriminated against her by transferring her when four younger colleagues in the English department had less seniority. Though she eventually returned to San Clemente High School to teach a speech class, Geis said she was not allowed to direct the debate team or receive a $900 stipend for her after-school work. Administrators later reassigned the speech and debate classes to a younger teacher who had little experience in the subject.

Faced with what she believed was ongoing harassment, Geis filed an administrative complaint with the Office of Civil Rights within the U.S. Department of Education. Since the July ruling, the district and Department of Education attorneys have been trying to work out a settlement.

In addition to back pay and corrective action, the settlement offer would give Geis one of three speech and debate courses at San Clemente High School and would reinstate her as the coordinator of the speech and debate club, with a full stipend.

The $12,000 represents the stipend Geis would have received had she been allowed to handle the after-school debate team until now.

The offer stipulates that the district cannot retaliate against Geis and must upgrade its 1990-91 evaluation of her teaching performance. Geis has charged that the district lowered her ratings last year in an attempt to harass her for pursuing her complaints.

District officials also must provide special instruction to district managers to prevent sexual discrimination and retaliation. In addition, they must turn over to the Department of Education all discrimination and retaliation complaints filed in the next three years.

“I’m glad to see it’s over with and that it’s finally water under the bridge,” said E.G. (Ted) Kopp, a district board member. “If we were able to pursue it, we probably would have won on appeal. But that would have taken so much money that could have gone to educating students. When there is someone with so much tenacity, it is hard to defend oneself. So we said, ‘Let’s forget it.’ ”

In the administrative ruling, the judge concluded that high-ranking district administrators, including former superintendent Jerome Thornsley, violated Geis’ employment contract and discriminated against her.

Thornsley, who retired from Capistrano Unified last summer, has steadfastly denied any impropriety. He said he had no reaction to the settlement offer but defended his longstanding position.

“I did my thing when I was there at the district, and I think it was with integrity,” Thornsley said Thursday. “This is the business of the present administration. I have nothing to do with it anymore.”

If the settlement agreement is finalized, it will close one chapter in Geis’ fight with the district. She still has a lawsuit pending in Superior Court alleging that the district harassed her with groundless reprimands and the denial of plum teaching assignments. Geis said she has an appointment today with her attorney to discuss whether to continue that lawsuit.