Former Principal Sues School District

Former Adams Elementary School principal Marjorie Variano filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Santa Barbara School District claiming she was terminated because she’d been an outspoken advocate and whistle-blower on behalf special education students and program. Her initial job evaluations were uniformly laudatory, she claimed, but that changed by the spring of 2009, after she’d complained repeatedly that the district was failing to comply with the letter and the spirit of the state’s special education requirements. She claimed the district fired her under the pretext that she failed to conduct certain assessments and training programs, neither of which she said were required or within her job description.