Apr. 14—Santa Fe Public Schools has done an about-face in its response to a whistleblower case in which a jury awarded a former assistant principal nearly $800,000 after finding district officials retaliated against her for pushing an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by student athletes.
After appealing the jury's ruling to the state Court of Appeals in November, the school district dropped its challenge Monday and paid Kelly Rinaldi and her attorneys $1.6 million to settle the case. Of that, $612,000 will go to Rinaldi and $987,500 to her attorneys, according to the March 29 settlement agreement.
Rinaldi, a former assistant principal at Santa Fe High, filed a lawsuit in 2020 under the New Mexico Whistleblower Protection Act alleging she had drawn officials' ire in 2017 by insisting they investigate members of the school's basketball team who had been accused of engaging in sexual activity with a teen girl and creating photos and video of the incident.
Jurors in late August agreed district officials had created a hostile working environment for Rinaldi and declined to renew her contract for the 2019-20 school year in retaliation for her efforts to initiate an investigation.
Martin Esquivel, general counsel for the school district's insurer, wrote in an email the New Mexico Public Schools Insurance Authority felt the school district had acted appropriately.
"The case was contested and, unfortunately, a jury saw it differently than we hoped. ... After...
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