District at center of federal probes

Investigations looking at allegations of harassment and discrimination

Colorado’s Cherry Creek School District — consistently ranked among the best in the state — is at the center of multiple federal discrimination and harassment investigations for its alleged treatment of women and people of color.

The allegations of at least one inquiry range from women administrators who are underpaid compared to men in similar positions with far less experience, to outright threats of firing, to subordinates for reporting any misbehavior or misconduct, according to documents provided to The Denver Gazette.

Several people interviewed by The Denver Gazette, most of them current employees, also described a permissive culture

where men were treated demonstrably different than women and inappropriate or harassing behavior is routinely tolerated.

They told of incidents where: Male administrators were promoted or given raises despite reprimands for sexually harassing or racist behavior; women were admonished for misbehavior more harshly than men with similar or more severe misdeeds, such as the misappropriation of school funds; men guilty of sophomoric high jinks heavy with sexual or racist overtones are routinely tolerated because witnesses, many of them women, fear speaking up — including a December 2017 meeting of elementary school principals and assistants where an administrator’s ugly sweater featured a snowman’s carrot nose set instead to appear as male genitalia.

The breadth and entrenchment of the conduct of administrators are the focus of a federal Title IX sex discrimination investigation launched last summer by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights after a former principal complained of the mistreatment she allegedly faced in the district and the conduct of others that she said was routinely brushed aside.

A second Title IX inquiry for sexual harassment was begun in April 2019. The details of that complaint are not public.

Title IX requires schools that receive federal funds to operate in a manner free of discrimination based on sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity. It applies to students and all district employees.

The district is also facing five Title VI investigations by the same federal agency involving allegations of race discrimination and harassment — all begun since last June and the most of any educational institution in Colorado. Details of those complaints are also not public. Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin. It also applies to students and district employees.

The Denver Gazette confirmed the existence of the investigations with the Office for Civil Rights.

“In my experience, I have seen gender discrimination directly, witnessed gender discrimination with others, worked in a toxic, hostile environment, and was retaliated against after speaking up for myself and others,” according to Linda Maccagnan, a former Cherry Creek elementary school principal who resigned after a 25-year career following a demotion in early 2020, then filed her federal complaint.

“The district has a practice of doing extensive and public investigations of women administrators alleged to have engaged in misconduct while minimizing, covering up, or ignoring misconduct by male administrators,” she told The Denver Gazette. “Many of the men accused of sexual harassment have moved on to leadership positions in other school districts.”

Maccagnan’s complaint, which she provided to The Denver Gazette, addresses only the conduct of adults employed by the school district, none of it involving students.

A statement by Cherry Creek School District No. 5 to The Denver Gazette said it “vigorously disputes the allegations” of Maccagnan’s federal complaint. “Many of the assertions she makes in her case are factually wrong and we will defend these allegations.”

The district did not address the other federal investigations.

“We are confident that we have the facts and documentation to prove to OCR that Ms. Maccagnan’s case is unfounded and that many of the allegations she makes are inaccurate and misleading,” the district said. “While a version of the incidents she describes may have happened, her details about each incident contain inaccuracies and the conclusions she draws are wrong.”

The school district did not identify which of Maccagnan’s allegations were inaccurate, saying “we will not litigate this case in the media.” It also said the district is a workplace that values women and pays them equitably.

“Cherry Creek Schools has a long tradition of valuing women leaders and staff. The district is governed by an all-women Board of Education,” it said in its statement. “The District Leadership Team is made up of six women and five men. The majority of administrators in the district are women. Among our eight high schools, six have women serving as principal.”

It added: “The district has taken proactive measures to strengthen school and district culture in support of women, employees of color, and LGTBQ employees.”

The school district is composed of 67 schools — 43 of them elementary — and has more than 3,800 teachers and about 170 administrators. It serves the cities of Greenwood Village, Cherry Hills Village, most of Centennial, Foxfield, and Glendale, as well as portions of Aurora and Englewood.

There is no timeline to the investigation, which can sometimes take years, the federal agency said.

“A core component of OCR’s mission is the prompt and effective investigation and resolution of complaints,” a department spokesman told The Denver Gazette. “The length of time it takes to resolve a case depends on several factors, including the number and complexity of the issues raised — and many of OCR’s cases are fact-intensive and involve highly complex legal issues.”

The federal department currently has 22 different Title IX investigations ongoing in Colorado, some dating to 2014.

A spokesman for Colorado’s Department of Education said it does not track federal investigations in the state nor is asked to assist with them.

‘It’s the culture of the Creek’

Maccagnan filed her complaint in August 2020 following a number of incidents in which she alleged she was demoted, lost some of her pay, and battled years of gender inequity despite stellar performance reviews and solid results. She bolstered her accusations with examples of similar misogynistic and sexual misbehavior throughout the district going back several years.

The federal OCR opened its inquiry in Maccagnan’s case in July 2021, according to a letter it sent her.

Her federal complaint came shortly after the school district completed its own review of her allegations — the details of which The Denver Gazette independently confirmed through others who witnessed the events she described — and dismissed them outright as “unfounded.”

Cherry Creek told Maccagnan her complaints were not credible, including any evidence that men were paid more than women of similar experience, or that women were treated less favorably or disciplined differently, or that there was a problem with the culture.

“Ms. Maccagnan was demoted from her principalship based on serious performance concerns that caused her to lose the support and trust of two school communities,” the district said in its statement. “We have documented evidence of disruption in the community and parent and staff concerns about her ability to lead.”

But Maccagnan’s own performance evaluations tell a different tale.

While principal at Challenge School, her final evaluation there in 2018 reflected a positive experience.

“Linda it has been an absolute pleasure to work with you over the past several years. Wow! What a ride!” wrote Chris Smith, the current district superintendent. “Challenge is a better school because you were their principal.”

At High Plains, her evaluation at the end of the 2019 school year gave her an overall rating of “highly effective.”

That December, Maccagnan filed a gender discrimination complaint at the district. By March 2020, she was demoted with an explanation that she had lost the confidence of her staff. The district documented a number of teachers and staff who found Maccagnan difficult to work with.

Although the school district said it hired an “independent outside law firm” to investigate Maccagnan’s claims, the inquiry was actually done by attorney Holly Ortiz, who works for law firm Semple, Farrington, Everall & Case in Denver.

The firm has represented the school district in several civil lawsuits over the past several years, court records show.

“They’re already paid to protect the district from liability,” Maccagnan said, noting several key witnesses to the incidents she raised were never interviewed. “This was not an independent investigation.”

Current principals, teachers, and staff interviewed by The Denver Gazette largely backed up Maccagnan’s assertions and several of the incidents she described.

Nearly all who spoke to The Denver Gazette did so only if their names were not used because they feared retribution by the district. Others said they were too fearful to speak at all. Several have worked for more than a dozen years in Cherry Creek and have held a variety of administrative positions.

Most said they experienced or witnessed the offensive conduct firsthand and few reported it because they feared retaliation.

The Denver Gazette withheld the names of some people accused of misconduct because no official documents identify them. In other cases The Denver Gazette identified individuals because the documentation exists.

“It’s the culture of Creek, that if you don’t follow the line, we cover things up, allow white men to dominate leadership roles despite several instances where they violate it,” a current female principal said. “They move on up or they move out.”

For its part, the school district said Maccagnan’s complaint wrongly picked examples to prove her point.

“Ms. Maccagnan selectively presents instances of administrator discipline that mischaracterize facts and she leaves out instances from the past five years when male administrators received serious discipline,” the district said in its statement.

Angry administrator: ‘Know your master’

The degree of outwardly racially insensitive behavior or comments by male administrators has exasperated and astonished a number of people, some of it going back years, according to Maccagnan’s complaint and interviews by The Denver Gazette.

In August 2016, then-executive director of student achievement services Tony Poole lashed out at subordinates during a meeting.

Poole was annoyed that gossip was circulating about alleged influence over how his wife, Rebecca Lopez, got a job in the district’s office of gifted and talented services. Lopez is currently director of that program.

Fuming, Poole told the nearly two dozen people in attendance — most of them women and two of them Black — that “You need to know who your master is.”

The comment froze several of the people who heard it.

“I remember it vividly. He said that basically he was our master. I actually got up and left, I was so upset. I went into the hall, took some deep breaths and returned,” a woman who was at the meeting told The Denver Gazette. “Nobody confronted it at the time, we were all so afraid.”

Another woman who was at the meeting told The Denver Gazette she later complained to the district’s human resources department.

“He was very clear that he’s in charge and you go to no one but him with complaints,” the woman said. “It was wrong to say something like that, especially in front of two Black women.”

The complaint spurred Poole to follow up with an email to the meeting’s attendees that they got the wrong message, despite his admitted use of the word.

“I thought I did well because I didn’t curse! … I certainly meant no offense in terms of my word choice,” Poole wrote in an email obtained by The Denver Gazette. “However, if I offended you with my message, then I am OK with that, to be honest.”

Then, Poole lashed out even further in the email.

“You all WORK FOR ME. You need to remember that. You answer to me,” he wrote. “Remember who you work for and be loyal, whether you like ME or not. OR, let me help you find another job.”

Poole is currently the district’s assistant superintendent of special populations, responsible for students with special needs.

The school district said it passed a policy in 2018 that mandates a professional atmosphere at all times. It did not say if the Poole incident was a factor. The district in June 2020 told Maccagnan it had no records of any discipline involving Poole, according to its reply to her open-records request.

“Interactions between staff members must be based on mutual respect and any disputes resolved in a professional manner,” the policy reads.

Poole did not respond to a Denver Gazette email seeing comment about the incident.

A problematic sweater

In a photo circulated on social media in February 2020, Altitude Elementary School principal Scott Schleich is seen standing next to the school’s building engineer, the two donning wigs depicting hair that appears to be of an African American during the school’s “crazy hair day.”

“We were told it was being addressed,” according to a teacher who said complaints were filed with district officials about the incident, referred to as “Wiggate,” but heard nothing back.

Coincidentally, a month after the incident occurred, Gov. Jared Polis signed the CROWN Act into law, banning natural hair discrimination.

In a different social media post of December 2021, fourth grade teacher Ben Lowy at the same school is shown wearing a holiday sweatshirt with an image of Santa Claus and the words,

“Where my Hos at?” written across it while a half-dozen other fourth grade teachers — all women — surround him with smiles and theatrical looks of surprise.

The photo was taken in Altitude’s gymnasium in front of a curtain that separates it from the school’s cafeteria.

Schleich gave his “love” approval to the Facebook posting while the school’s assistant principal Midge Eidson commented, “Great picture! Great team!”

“The men do it and the women just shut up and go along with it,” said a teacher who witnessed the sweatshirt incident. “That’s just how things are done here. If it’s a woman who does it, out you go.”

The photo was widely distributed, including copies shared with at least one district official and two members of the Cherry Creek school board, according to three people aware of the distribution.

Maccagnan, an assistant principal at Altitude a year earlier, said the events were indicative of the racial insensitivity and sexual overtones that are deep-rooted in Cherry Creek and rarely disciplined.

“Christmas sweaters as a planned event in a public school is not very welcoming for non- Christians, but the sweater is really problematic,” Maccagnan said. “The Ebonics-type language, reference to ‘ hos,’ and then the look of the whole picture with the women behind him … the message it sends to the adults is offensive.”

It’s unclear what the district knows or did about the sweatshirt incident, or whether it had been worn throughout the school day in front of students. Maccagnan said she had complained about the culture at Altitude to district officials after her departure in August 2020, including the wig incident where the building engineer in the photo is a man of color.

In response, officials who looked into the matter said Schleich was attempting to depict actor Gabe Kaplan from the television comedy “Welcome Back Kotter,” according to a letter the district sent Maccagnan. Schleich was “deeply troubled” by the mistake and apologized to the person who complained, the letter says.

The district wrote that Schleich was “a very successful principal with an outstanding reputation who had built a very positive environment at Altitude.”

The problem at Altitude, according to the district letter to her, was Maccagnan, not anyone else.

“Not one single individual interviewed except Ms. Maccagnan had anything negative to say about Mr. Schleich at all,” the district letter says. “To the contrary, every single witness who had worked with him stated he was a dedicated and accomplished administrator.”

Schleich and Lowry are still at Altitude Elementary. Neither replied to Denver Gazette emails seeking their response.

Salary hiked for disciplined principal

Discipline is sometimes meted out differently to men and women, according to interviews and internal documents shared with The Denver Gazette.

Maccagnan included several anecdotes in her federal discrimination complaint to illustrate how males disciplined for sexually related infractions received smaller pay cuts — or no pay cut at all — than women disciplined for less-serious offenses.

District officials countered in their letter to Maccagnan that she was treated fairly, as were the other women administrators she named.

In December 2017, then-Timberline Elementary principal Todd Wynne was placed on administrative leave over allegations of sexual harassment stemming from a relationship he was having with a teacher there. Wynne had been warned by superiors about the relationship at least two months prior, according to district documents.

The situation soured and it “became a critical disruption to the culture/climate and learning environment at the school,” according to a letter of reprimand Wynne received on March 14, 2018, from Chris Smith, then Cherry Creek’s executive director of elementary education.

Smith is currently the superintendent of Cherry Creek School District No. 5.

Smith counseled Wynne for “oversharing personal information” with others at the school including “statements about the need for a wife to ‘ take care of her man’ and the personal attire of your wife,” according to the letter.

His conduct “degraded the trust” parents had for the school, “disrupted the learning environment” in a specific class of first graders, and showed a “lack of professionalism and poor decision-making,” Smith wrote.

Wynne was ordered to take sexual harassment training and, according to the district, was reassigned to a coordinator position because of a sexual relationship he had with the teacher.

Although the district told Maccagnan in June 2021 that Wynne’s pay was reduced, the district told The Denver Gazette on Friday that he was paid the same salary despite the demotion.

However, district salary records show Wynne was to be transferred to an assistant principal job — with a $4,057 boost in pay to $99,021 — with the footnote “can have increase.”

Instead, Wynne resigned from Cherry Creek to become principal of Hanson Elementary School in the Adams 14 school district, eventually moving to Minnesota, where he is currently principal of Columbia Heights High School there, according to his LinkedIn page.

Wynne’s replacement at Timberline — Christie Toliver — didn’t fare as well, according to Maccagnan’s federal complaint.

She had lost the confidence of her colleagues there, according to a lengthy letter the district sent her that cited low morale and “a high level of mistrust.”

The district had interviewed staff at the school over two days. The bottom line: Toliver was an assertive administrator who wasn’t well-liked and had difficulty with staff and parents alike, according to a copy of the comments the district culled.

One interviewee even told district officials that “last year (under Wynne) was better,” according to the letter.

As a result, documents show, Toliver was demoted to an assistant principal job at Holly Hills/Holly Ridge Elementary School, her pay was cut by $10,565 and she was to lose a $2,000 annual daycare stipend.

Maccagnan said the disparity of how Wynne and Toliver were treated amounted to a sexist environment.

“This shows that the staff will accept sexual harassment by a man more readily than it will accept an assertive woman,” Maccagnan said.

The district told Maccagnan that, like her, Toliver’s demotion had nothing to do with gender and was based exclusively on performance.

Toliver did not respond to a Denver Gazette email seeking comment. Wynne responded by saying the information was “inaccurate” but did not explain.

A prank about drinking

Male administrators who use off-color remarks or share inappropriate anecdotes is a reflection of the permissive culture Cherry Creek has fostered for years, several school administrators told The Denver Gazette.

That no one steps up to stamp it out suggests it’s too deeply rooted to be ended easily, they said. A half dozen principals pointed to an event in 2017 involving Superintendent Smith to illustrate the point.

As executive director of elementary education, Smith had recurring meetings with the district’s 44 elementary school principals and their assistants to network, get updates on policy changes or any other bits of important information.

During a portion of the meeting informally known as “You can’t make this (expletive) up” where anyone could relate an amusing anecdote, Smith chimed in with a tale of a prank two elementary principals at the time — Wynne from Timberline Elementary and Derek Mullner from High Plains Elementary — had played on him.

“The prank was that one of them got pulled over for being intoxicated and they called Smith to see his reaction to that,” said a female elementary school principal who was an assistant at the time. “They called him in the middle of the night and his reaction was that he had their back, that he had them covered no matter what.”

The anecdote and its message struck the principal as odd.

“It was shared as a joke and I was trying to figure out why,” the woman said. “I was taken aback and was stunned this was being shared. I remember clearly that the lines were be

“Cherry Creek has a way. I’m convinced that if I made too big a wave I’d not have a job anywhere else right now. Women are terrified to speak out.”

Former fourth grade teacher

ing crossed.”

Even though the entire incident was fabricated, another woman who was also an assistant principal at the time said she was bothered that the prank involved drinking, a problem a family member of hers was struggling with at the time.

“Why were they joking about that, it really hit a nerve with me,” she said. “It wasn’t funny. They were partying and called him to get them out of trouble? And he’s enabling them? And he kept saying to them, ‘Calm down, I’ll get you out of it.’ ”

The woman recalled a different incident where Smith admonished a female principal for posting on a personal Facebook page a photo of herself having a drink while on vacation.

“That was an inappropriate personal Facebook post and she got into trouble,” she said. “Here are these two men supposedly out drinking and he’s saying it’s okay, he’ll get them out of it? I thought it just wasn’t right, prank or not.”

Moreover, the women said, Smith’s anecdote drew laughter.

“The general reaction was you were expected to laugh,” one said. “That’s your boss up there, so I guess it’s funny and I’m supposed to go along with this. All the directors were laughing. It’s the tone. Do I play along? They were my bosses.”

Mullner replaced Smith a year later as an executive director of elementary education when the latter was promoted to chief of staff under then-Superintendent Scott Siegfried.

In the district’s internal investigation about the incident — it occurred after Maccagnan filed her Title IX complaint — Smith confirmed two principals had called to say they were arrested, documents obtained by The Denver Gazette show. But Smith told the district investigator that he told the principals he would help them if he could, denying he said he’d protect them.

Mullner said Maccagnan’s version of the event was also wrong, according to the district’s letter to her.

The investigator did not relate whether anyone else at the meeting was questioned. Neither Smith nor Mullner responded to Denver Gazette emails seeking comment.

Matters of experience

Maccagnan was demoted from principal at High Plains Elementary in April 2020 to an assistant principal at Altitude — the district said she had “lost the confidence” of her staff at High Plains. Although she kept her principal salary when she arrived at her new school — $113,428 — the district had told her she faced a pay cut of more than $20,000 within the year. She resigned before that could happen.

“It was clear from our conversations with teachers, staff, and parents, that Linda Maccagnan completely lost the confidence of her community and was unable to lead,” Cherry Creek Education Association president Kasey Ellis, which represents teachers, said in a statement to The Denver Gazette.

In her efforts to determine why her pay was being slashed, Maccagnan said she discovered that other women administrators weren’t being paid as much as similarly situated men with less experience.

“That’s the first time I saw it wasn’t just me. I was shocked,” Maccagnan said about the results of an open-records request she made with the school district. “That the pay was so disparate, so discriminatory. I couldn’t believe it.”

The school district disputed Maccagnan’s assertion, saying she was paid fairly — sometimes too much — and that her pay reduction was in line with her new job.

“When she was demoted after losing the confidence of High Plains Elementary, she accepted the assistant principal position at Altitude Elementary School and her salary remained the same for one year despite the fact her new position was assistant principal and not principal,” the district said.

Databases of administrator salaries the district gave Maccagnan for the 2018-19 school year showed a marked disparity, with some women principals and assistant principals of extensive experience underpaid by as much as $7,000 compared to men in similar positions.

In one example, a female high school principal was paid $5,000 less than a male high school principal with less experience. To justify it, the woman’s experience level was reduced by 11 years, the database shows.

The district initially defended the reduction in experience, according to responses it gave Maccagnan when she asked about it, but then restored the missing amount three years later, records obtained by The Denver Gazette show.

More-current salary information provided by the district in response to a request from The Denver Gazette, on its face, actually shows no disparity in pay, with men and women of similar experience and similar positions being paid nearly identically.

But that’s where the similarity ends. In reality, although salaries were increased across the board, the years of experience that help determine those salaries were adjusted for several administrators.

Overall, The Denver Gazette found those changes in experience levels averaged higher for the men than those of the women. In essence, it appears men with less experience are being paid more than they deserve.

In one case, the amount of experience for a male assistant principal at a middle school was increased by a decade — from two years experience in 2018-19 to 15 years in the current school year.

In contrast, a woman middle school assistant principal who is paid the same and shown to have the same 15 years of experience as the male actually had seven years experience in 2018-2019. Only five years were added for her.

And among high school assistant principals, two men saw gains of seven and eight years of experience — putting them at the upper tier of the pay scale for the job — while two women of similar experience received only five extra years each, paying each of them $10,000 less.

District policy on administrator pay lists three factors that are considered: The job to be done; experience; skills and abilities.

The district did not explain why experience levels have been adjusted but did say it conducted a pair of salary market studies — one in 2018 and another in 2021 — “as part of its commitment to continuous improvement and equity.”

Those studies “led to further revisions of service standards that ensured continued fair pay for all employees,” the district said in its statement to The Denver Gazette. “Since 2018, the salaries of the district have been set by an outside company that is owned by a woman. The company bases its pay recommendation on a mathematical formula that does not consider gender at all.”

Actual pay, however, is determined by the superintendent or their designee, according to district policies.

‘Women are terrified to speak out’

Sometimes inappropriate conduct appears to have been handled informally, leaving little trace that it ever happened.

Maccagnan and her attorney made several requests of the district for disciplinary records about incidents to confirm investigations had been conducted only to be told none existed.

In the 2015-16 school year, for example, despite complaints that a male assistant principal at a newly constructed elementary school was seen having sex with a married female staffer in an unoccupied classroom, there were no records of the incident, Maccagnan said.

The assistant principal, who was also married, was simply reassigned somewhere else, according to a female teacher who was at the school at the time and who said the man readily admitted the encounter.

“He told me,” the woman said. “He literally stood in the hall, telling people that he felt better that it was out. He and his wife were in couples counseling. The frankness of the conversation was pretty shocking.”

The female staffer’s husband had found out about the encounter and reported the incident to district officials, the teacher said.

“He (the assistant principal) fessed up to them (district officials) and said as a result they’ll be moving him to a different building the following year,” she said the assistant principal told her. “He said he was getting a fresh start at a different school.”

In its statement to The Denver Gazette, the district said it has a firm policy that all romantic relationships among colleagues must not impact the school environment. Relationships between a supervisor and subordinate must be reported to the district’s human resources department within 10 days.

It also pointed to a stern policy it has against harassment and a commitment to investigate all claims of harassment of any kind.

In another incident recounted by a different woman, the same assistant principal frequently broached inappropriate topics.

“At one meeting, he said he felt like the moms were hitting on him at pickup and dismissal time,” the woman told The Denver Gazette. “And then offered his opinion about whether the women’s ‘drapes matched the carpet,’ ” a compar

ison between the color of their hair and that of their genitalia.

At times female district employees said they were simply too afraid to speak out because they feared for their jobs.

A former fourth grade teacher at an elementary school described to The Denver Gazette how, while she was seated at a training session in 2015, a former principal of hers stood over her and rubbed her shoulders unsolicited.

“I physically pulled my shoulders away from him, then he tried it again,” the woman said. “Then he started fidgeting and I asked if he needed something. He said his zipper wasn’t functioning and that maybe I could help him with it later.”

The woman said her discomfort over the incident grew throughout the day, so she turned to a representative of the Cherry Creek Education Association, the teacher’s union.

“He strongly encouraged me not to say anything, saying it was a ‘ he said, she said’ issue,” the woman said of the union representative. “I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers in the district because I needed the job.”

At the union representative’s urging, she said she instead wrote the principal an email telling him of her discomfort, and received a response that was less than an apology.

“‘I’m sorry you misunderstood,’ is what he wrote,” she said, noting that she has failed in efforts to retrieve the email from the district.

“Cherry Creek has a way,” she said. “I’m convinced that if I made too big a wave I’d not have a job anywhere else right now. Women are terrified to speak out.”

The man still works for the district.