BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The Palo Alto Unified School District hasn’t paid a law firm that successfully challenged the district’s policies for placing students in ninth grade math, according to a new lawsuit by four parents.
The district owes attorney David Tollner $38,311 for his firm’s work on a lawsuit that said the district was holding students back from advancing.
Tollner said his emails to attorney Mark Davis, who represents the district, have been ignored since Dec. 1.
So Tollner filed a lawsuit on Monday on behalf of four parents — Edith Cohen, Xin Li, Yiyi Zeng and Marek Albostza — asking a judge to find the district in contempt of court and to order another $4,018 payment.
Math placement lawsuit
Cohen, Li, Zeng and Albostza sued the district in July 2021 for allegedly violating the state’s 2015 Math Placement Act, which requires districts to establish “a fair, objective, and transparent mathematics placement policy” for students entering high school.
“All opportunities to excel in math are based on bogus tests designed so that students fail and are railroaded two to three years before they start high school,” said the lawsuit, filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court.
Davis argued that students were tested and allowed to advance rapidly ahead of the typical path, with four levels of math offered in three years of middle school.
Judge’s ruling
Judge Carrie Zepeda in February 2023 found that freshman are placed in a math class based on their eighth grade level and ordered the district to test students in the first month of high school.
Zepeda also found the district failed to post its math placement policy online and didn’t collect and analyze data related to math levels, as required by the Math Placement Act.
Zepeda ordered the district to annually report the number of students, broken down by gender and ethnicity, who moved up or down after a placement test.
District claims victory
After the ruling, former Superintendent Don Austin declared “a significant victory” because Zepeda didn’t require any changes to middle school math and only minor changes to high school math.
“We won on everything that matters,” Austin said in a text message at the time.
But the parents said their victory would allow hundreds if not thousands of students to reach more advanced levels of math.
Tollner’s firm asked for $104,531 in attorney fees, but Davis said a $425 hourly rate was “unsupported, excessive and unreasonable.”
Zepeda ordered the district to pay $38,311 in attorney fees on Sept. 5, 2024, court records show. She signed the order a year later.
Tollner’s firm sent the order to the wrong place but then corrected the issue and sent it to Davis by Oct. 2, according to the latest lawsuit.
Tollner followed up with Davis about the payment on Dec. 1 and Jan.
“Our clients and I would much prefer just to get the check,” Tollner said in an email filed with the lawsuit.
Davis replied that he was out of the country on Jan. 3 and apparently still hadn’t responded by Jan. 22.
That’s when Tollner said he would be filing a motion for contempt if Davis didn’t commit to paying.
“I hate to have to write that message, but you have to admit this is more than a little silly,” Tollner said.
Payment delay
Davis told the Post in an email yesterday that he has a good relationship with Tollner, and the fees will be paid.
Davis said there was a delay because Tollner’s firm switched attorneys, and the district was trying to clarify if the fees would be paid by the district or a joint powers authority that provides liability insurance.
“I have let opposing counsel know that the fees will be paid shortly and this matter will be concluded,” Davis said in an email yesterday.
Related lawsuit
One of the parents in the lawsuit, Edith Cohen, sued the district on April 21 over its handling of two former superintendents who were paid to resign.
The board agreed to pay longtime Superintendent Don Austin $596,802 on Feb. 20 and Acting Superintendent Trent Bahadursingh $346,673 on March 17.
Cohen said the board should’ve approved the separation agreements publicly in a regular meeting because they included large payments, non-disparagement clauses and releases of liability.
Records dispute
Tollner recently scored a victory over the district in another lawsuit by parents William Nee and Wei-Wei Lin.
Nee and Lin requested hundreds of documents in November 2022 meant to show the district is failing to support disabled students. They sued after Austin and Compliance Manager Amanda Bark allegedly dragged out the request and provided incomplete records, without legal justification.
On April 15, the district on agreed to fulfill the records request and pay $29,459 in attorney fees within 30 days.
And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse or more embarrassing for PAUSD, it takes another turn south. With all the pending lawsuits against them, they absolutely can not afford any bad publicity about not paying their own lawyers. If only there was a business out there that could help with public relations and business strategies. Hmmmmm, sounds familiar……. I got it! They can pay Don Austin and Trent Bahardursingh even more money and hire Simple Wins to do damage control. Herb was paying close attention to Don’s lesson, he’ll turn the PAUSD ship around. Step #1 is still TRUTH.