Marin judge orders schools trustee to stop attacks on parent

A judge has ordered a Tamalpais Union High School District trustee to cease his alleged harassment and threats against a parent.

Kevin Saavedra is barred from any form of electronic, written, oral or physical contact with Ina Gotlieb or her child, who attends one of the two alternative schools in the district.

Gotlieb sought a restraining order against Saavedra over a series of alleged email and video attacks, threats and profane remarks over the last 10 months. Marin Superior Court Judge Mark Talamantes granted a three-year restraining order on Thursday.

“This is an abuse of power,” Talamantes told Saavedra at the hearing. “You have been entrusted with a position of authority, and you have used that position to personally humiliate a parent whose child is in one of the schools under your authority.”

Talamantes also prohibited Saavedra, 55, from possessing firearms. If Saavedra violates the court orders, he could face criminal charges, jail time and fines.

“I’m finally feeling a sense of relief that I’ve been seeking for a long time from Mr. Saavedra’s ongoing harassment,” Gotlieb, 56, a college admissions counselor, said after the hearing. “I’m grateful that the judge was able to see this case for what it was: an abuse of power by an elected official to harass a parent in the school district where they are an authority.”

On Friday, the school district announced that Cynthia Roenisch, the board president, has proposed a motion to censure Saavedra “for his unprofessional and aggressive communications directed toward a district parent.” The motion cites the restraining order.

The motion has been placed on the agenda for the board of trustees meeting on Tuesday.

Saavedra is a two-term incumbent running for reelection in the Nov. 3 race. The conflict between Saavedra and Gotlieb started last November, when the board discussed a plan to place the Tamiscal and San Andreas alternative high schools at one campus.

Dozens of residents unhappy with the plan signed up to speak at the meeting. Roenisch enforced a strict one-minute time limit for each speaker.

Students were distressed, and many seemed hurt in the way that they were cut off at one minute, Gotlieb said. Several were in the middle of saying how the interventions at the school had saved them from taking their own lives, she said.

Later that night, Gotlieb wrote an angry email to Roenisch. She called Roenisch a expletive and a “sad old woman who must have experienced some deep trauma” to act as she did.

Roenisch did not respond, but she shared the email with Saavedra. He has said he was infuriated because Gotlieb must have known that Roenisch had a family member who died by suicide in 2006.

Saavedra sent Gotlieb a profane email that included an expletive and a description of her as a “stupid old crone.”

Gotlieb said she apologized to Roenisch. She had no prior knowledge about Roenisch’s personal family tragedy, Gotlieb said in her sworn affidavit in the petition for a restraining order.

Saavedra continued to email Gotlieb in the ensuing months. Gotlieb filed her petition for a restraining order on Sept. 28.

During the hearing Thursday, Saavedra told the judge his emails were a reaction to abusive personal attacks that he and other board members had endured in the last two years as civility eroded over various controversial decisions.

“Didn’t you sign up for that?” Talamantes said.

In an email later, Saavedra said the incivility against trustees is a real issue.

“The judge believes this is part of being a school district trustee,” Saavedra wrote. “I think tolerating that kind of behavior will cause people to reconsider running for public office.”

Gotlieb said she hopes “our voters will look at Mr. Saavedra and see somebody who does not deserve to be reelected to this position.”

“I’m hoping that if they find out more information about who Mr. Saavedra is and how he has been treating parents in our district, that they will decide that he’s not the right person who should be leading our schools,” she said.