Country Day’s Fired Director Sues School : Education: Ex-headmaster of exclusive La Jolla school says he was wrongly terminated and is owed $600,000.

The ousted headmaster of one of the county’s most elite private schools has filed suit against its board, accusing La Jolla Country Day School of wrongful termination and breach of contract, and asking for $600,000 in damages.

In July, the 17-member board fired John C. Littleford, 48, whose contract runs until early 1994. The board’s action capped a flurry of lawsuits, the first of which accused Littleford of sexually harassing a former receptionist at the school.

That suit, filed by the receptionist, was later settled out of court for $9,250.

In the latest suit, filed Aug. 28 in San Diego County Superior Court, Littleford accuses the board of engaging in a “conspiracy” to bring about his dismissal, not because of alleged sexual improprieties but out of insoluble professional and philosophical differences.

“In addition, an elite social group within the parent body, who were opposed to increased enrollment and increased social, racial and economic diversity in the student body, set out to force Littleford’s resignation or dismissal,” the suit says.

Dr. Sidney C. Smith Jr., a cardiologist who heads the board of directors, said Friday that many of Littleford’s charges are “just incorrect. . . . I don’t want to get into responding to those on a point-by-point basis in this forum. We will do that in the appropriate time as we enter the legal process.”

In response to Littleford’s assertion that the sexual harassment issue was contrived to foster his dismissal, Smith said, “The decision the board made was based on a thorough review and extended well beyond the particular sexual-harassment issue.

“And many of the allegations in his (recent) letter (to parents and staff members) are just incorrect, inaccurate. . . . This was a full and fair review, and the board stands behind its decision.”

Littleford’s suit brands the sexual harassment charge of the former receptionist, Lisa R. Gordon, as “meritless” and says it gave the board of directors the “opportunity” to get rid of him.

Gordon, 23, now a student at UC Davis, filed suit against Littleford and the school last October, claiming that, during her time of employment, he repeatedly touched her, made inappropriate comments and pressured her for dates.

Littleford has consistently and vehemently denied the charges. His suit says that, even if proven true, the allegations fail to support “termination under the contract as an act of gross misconduct involving moral turpitude.”

“Even if the board were to assume that everything (Gordon) said was the truth, the most she was alleging was overly aggressive verbal sexual harassment,” the suit says.

Initially, the board backed Littleford and rejected Gordon’s plea for a $40,000 settlement. But then-board president Gloria de Aragon Andujar, Littleford’s chief ally, resigned shortly thereafter, and the newly revised board took a much more aggressive stance.

Gordon’s suit was later settled for much less. Pressured largely by parents at the school, which charges tuition of more than $7,700 a year, the board suspended the unpopular headmaster in March and later asked him to leave the La Jolla home they had purchased for his use.

According to sources at the school, the home, located on High Street, cost the board more than $900,000.

Littleford’s contract with the school, which is attached to the lawsuit, gave him $11,000 a year in “discretionary” money, $5,500 a year for “gifts, flowers and other similar needs,” $5,500 a year for “entertainment” and $11,000 a year for travel expenses. His base salary was $125,000.

Littleford says in the suit that Country Day officials sued his former school, the University School of Milwaukee--a suit that was later thrown out of court--”to subpoena 18 years of records” at that school and at another private school in Minneapolis.

The suit says the school spent more than $150,000 in legal fees in pursuing the records search.

Littleford said Friday he made repeated attempts to reach a financial settlement with the school and that the $600,000 asked for in the suit is a combination of “damages” and money owed him through the balance of his contract.

He said the school no longer wanted him for three major reasons: The nature of policy decisions made, particularly in the area of minority recruitment and enrollment; the pace of changes he instituted; and objections to his “management style.”

He said many parents objected to his taking a “more disciplined” approach with students.

Board president Smith denied those assertions and reiterated in a letter to parents this week that much of Littleford’s suit consists of “inaccuracies and misrepresentations.”

Littleford said he was responsible for increasing the enrollment at the school by more than 200 students, to its current level of about 900, and spearheading the construction of a new lower-school building.

The Littleford chapter is the latest in a long period of turmoil at the school. Littleford’s predecessor was forced to resign in 1989.

Previous headmaster Timothy Burns left after a controversy surrounding the departure of Sharon Rogers, a popular fourth-grade teacher and wife of Will Rogers III, skipper of the guided-missile cruiser Vincennes.

Fearing a terrorist attack, Burns refused to let Rogers return to work after a homemade bomb destroyed her van one morning, a move that drew outrage even from President Bush.

Littleford was hired after the subsequent nationwide search.

He concludes his suit by saying Country Day has “destroyed (his) career as a headmaster by making it impossible for him to obtain gainful employment . . . anywhere in the country.”