Coronado's school board meets Thursday, Sept. 10, with a sexual-abuse lawsuit and the superintendent's job review on the closed-session agenda. The open session includes a vote on the district's year-end financial report.

Closed session begins at 3 p.m. in the district office at 201 Sixth St. Open session follows at 4 p.m.

Litigation and superintendent review

The Jane Doe v. Coronado USD lawsuit, listed under Government Code Section 54956.9(d)(1), has appeared on the board's closed-session agenda at least three times since June. At a special meeting on June 1, the board met for roughly 10 hours on the case alone and reported no action taken, according to meeting minutes. The item returned on the Aug. 20 agenda.

A legal blog published by Horvitz & Levy reported in April that the California Supreme Court granted review in a case titled Doe v. Coronado Unified School District after an appellate court reversed a $5 million judgment.

The case involves allegations of sexual abuse of a student by a high school basketball assistant coach. The issue before the Supreme Court, as summarized by court staff: what information must a minor's parents have about a school employee's threat of sexual misconduct to support a finding of negligence against the parents?

The board agenda lists the case as GI21488, Claim No. 20-05411. Whether that trial court number corresponds to the Supreme Court docket could not be independently confirmed from available records.

Superintendent Karl Mueller's performance evaluation, the second closed-session item, also appeared on the June 11 and Aug. 20 agendas. The board reported no action on the evaluation at the June 11 meeting, according to those minutes. No outcome has been reported publicly.

Open-session business

The board's sole action item is adopting the 2025-26 Unaudited Actuals SACS Financial Report, the district's year-end accounting required by the state. No figures from the report have been released ahead of the meeting.

Two consent-calendar resolutions round out the financial business: one adopting the annual GANN appropriations limit, a state-required spending cap, and another addressing the Education Protection Account.

Reports and updates

Coronado Middle School Principal Brooke Falar will present the school's annual report. The school serves grades 6 through 8 with an enrollment of 660 students.

Mueller will update trustees on the district's HVAC Exploratory Committee and the Technology Use Audit. At the Aug. 20 meeting, Mueller introduced a new Discipline Dashboard aimed at campus transparency. "Our goal here is really to strengthen the partnership between CUSD and our parents," he told the Coronado Times in a Sept. 2 report on that initiative.

The Association of Coronado Teachers will also deliver a report.

Board members Renee Cavanaugh, Fitzhugh Lee, Malachy Sandie, Dr. Scot Youngblood and Alexia Palacios-Peters are listed on the agenda, along with student representative Ines Gil. Residents who wish to speak on an agenda item will have three minutes. The next regular board meeting is Thursday, Oct. 15, at 4 p.m.