Seven years ago, Jerry Hobbs, a Grossmont Union High School District teacher, resigned after officials launched an investigation into allegations he’d engaged in misconduct.
Years later, Hobbs was hired as a paralegal for a law firm that ended up doing work for the district. That work included conducting an investigation into Hobbs’ former boss, the person who launched an investigation into him. Hobbs worked on that investigation, which concluded he’d been a victim of retaliation.
A settlement agreement he helped draft then cleared the way for his rehiring at Grossmont – and district officials wasted no time. They hired him the month after the agreement to serve in a lofty administrative role, even as the district’s deteriorating financial position led to job cuts.
Now, in a leaked memo, the law firm at which he worked suggests he deceptively altered that settlement without their knowledge, adding potentially “illegal,” language.
As Grossmont’s community continues to be roiled by controversial layoffs, the saga has added fuel to the fire.
An Investigation Leads to a Settlement
In 2018, Grossmont Union High School District began investigating Hobbs, then a teacher at the district’s REACH Academy, a special education school in El Cajon. He later resigned.
Exactly what district officials were investigating is unclear. But he insists the allegations against him were unfounded and he said an investigation by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing into the 2018 situation did not find any grounds to discipline him. The commission’s website shows he has not been disciplined.
After his resignation, Hobbs went on to work as a paralegal at JW Howard Attorneys, a local law firm whose connection with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made headlines.
In July 2024, Grossmont’s board hired JW Howard Attorneys to conduct an internal investigation into allegations that Rose Tagnesi, the district’s former director of special education – and Hobbs’ former supervisor – engaged in retaliation against Grossmont employees.
District officials had previously launched an investigation against Tagnesi and demoted her in February 2024.
Tagnesi, who resigned following her demotion, has denied any wrongdoing and has since sued the district, alleging she faced discrimination and harassment because she is lesbian.
Hobbs, who had worked at JW Howard for nearly two years and once worked below Tagnesi at Grossmont, took part in the firm’s investigation.
“His background in legal research and, especially, in education and education policy and culture, suggested that he could be particularly helpful in the conduct of the investigation,” a memo addressed to Trustee Jim Kelly and dated April 27 reads.
Kelly did not respond to requests for comment. John Howard, the founder of JW Howard, confirmed he had authored the memo but said he could not comment on the document.
Hobbs said participating in the investigation of his former boss was not a conflict of interest. His role was simple and limited, he insisted.
“I was the researcher. I was the person sorting evidence and putting it in front of an attorney,” Hobbs said. “I wasn’t really involved in the case per se.”
JW Howard’s investigation ultimately identified 24 “victims,” of Tagnesi’s retaliation. Included among them was Hobbs. According to the memo, this led employees at JW Howard to believe Hobbs should be given another chance to work for Grossmont.“As a result of our findings, we were prepared to recommend that, in light of later developments, his record at GUHSD be updated and that he be made eligible for rehire,” the memo reads.
Based on the advice of attorney William Diedrich, a lawyer experienced with educational issues, entering into a settlement with the district was the easiest way to make Hobbs rehirable.
JW Howard then assigned Hobbs “the task of preparing the first draft of a settlement agreement,” with Grossmont, according to the leaked memo.
Over a week in December, Hobbs, Diedrich and Howard sent back and forth drafts of the settlement. By Dec. 16, Diedrich sent an edited copy to Howard, who forwarded it to Hobbs to finalize.
The copy of the settlement reviewed by Diedrich contained no mention that should Hobbs be rehired by Grossmont he would receive tenure. But the version sent by Hobbs to Howard later that day and labeled “Final,” did.
“The district agrees that, should Hobbs be reemployed, he will be granted tenure on the first day of employment,” that copy of the settlement reads.
The memo contends that Howard did not include this language in the settlement and that it’s illegal.
“This is the first time the illegal language referring to ‘tenure’ appears in any version of the proposed settlement,” the memo from JW Howard notes, referring to the final draft of the settlement.
This actually wasn’t Hobbs’ first stab at including language in the settlement stipulating he’d receive tenure. In the first draft of the settlement sent to Howard, Hobbs wrote that should Grossmont rehire him, he would “automatically be restored to a position with at least similar standing and pay as was effective in February 2018 including his full benefits.”
Additionally, he added that his level of seniority and tenure rights revert back to what they were prior to his resignation. When Howard received the draft, he asked Hobbs to send it to Diedrich. But the version Hobbs sent Diedrich did not include this language. The only other time Hobbs included mention of tenure rights came in the final draft sent to Howard.
The memo claims Hobbs didn’t just add language into the settlement. It claims Hobbs deleted elements of Diedrich’s edits, “something that would have never been approved.” It also claims that Hobbs turned off a Microsoft Word feature called “track changes,” so as to better hide that he was making surreptitious changes.
Diedrich did not return a request for comment. Collin McGlashen, Grossmont’s communications director, declined to comment.
The final version of the settlement opened the door for Hobbs’ rehiring at Grossmont in “any position or assignment for which he is qualified.” It also sealed the investigation into Hobbs conducted in spring 2018 and added stipulations to the circumstances of his resignation.
“The district acknowledges that Hobbs denies that he committed ‘immoral acts’ (defined as any acts that would make him ‘unfit to teach’) or any other acts or omissions constituting misconduct,” the settlement reads.
Hobbs has a very different view from Howard of the whole situation. He said he was simply adding things to the document he felt were fair. The 2018 investigation into him was unfounded, he insists, and it only seemed logical that he be returned to the tenure position he’d had then. He didn’t know whether that violated California’s education code but figuring that out should have been Howard’s role as an attorney, he said.
He also says there was no attempt to sneak the language into the settlement. He’d sent it to Howard and he assumed he’d read it.
“I think John Howard is just trying to cover his own hiney,” Hobbs said. “He’s trying to pass his attorney responsibility to a paralegal. He’s a senior attorney. He just didn’t do his job.”
Howard said that’s just not true.
“When a lawyer assigns something to a paralegal to prepare in final and the paralegal says something is in final, generally the lawyer doesn’t go back through to make sure the paralegal didn’t slip something in that wasn’t authorized. And that’s what happened here,” Howard said. “I trusted him.”
But to Bob Ottilie, a local lawyer with decades of experience in ethics litigation, whether Hobbs inserted the language wasn’t the chief concern. It was the actual arrangement, Ottilie said, wherein a former employee of a district seemed to be working on behalf of himself to craft a settlement for a law firm contracted by the district, that was “unheard of.”
“If this is an accurate depiction of how this settlement agreement came to be, it’s really unprecedented in my 45 years of law,” Ottilie said. “It should not have happened.”
Howard disagreed.
“My office prepared the settlement agreement because it was going to be vetted and sent to the district’s lawyer, so it was in accordance with what the district wanted,” Howard said. “The fact is that having him work on a contract that the board was going to have an independent review of by the district’s lawyer made it not a conflict.”
Hobbs’ New, New Gig
Throughout the crafting of this settlement, Grossmont was still a contracted client of JW Howard.
It wasn’t until February 2025 that the district terminated the services of JW Howard.
“This work has been completed, and his services are no longer required,” the agenda item reads.
The decision to terminate the contract proved to be controversial. Three of the district’s trustees approved the motion to terminate services, with Kelly and Scott Eckert dissenting and pushing back during public comment.
Between July 1, 2023 to Dec. 31, 2024, Grossmont paid JW Howard $695,701 for legal services – specifically employee investigations. That sum is more than the district spent with any other law firm during that same period.
After the settlement’s approval, it didn’t take long for Hobbs to find himself working for the district once again.
At a special board meeting on Jan. 16, trustees approved the job description for a newly created position called the director of student and family engagement, learning and innovation. Later in that same meeting, the board voted to appoint Hobbs to that newly created position. Both moves were approved by all board members save for Fite.
“I voted against his appointment because it was alarming to me that this thing came out of the blue. There was no discussion, no community input,” Fite said.
The speed with which he was hired by the district was by design, said Hobbs.
“I don’t think there’s any question, at least in my mind, that part of the reason to exonerate me and bring the documents in December was to make me eligible for rehiring for this position,” Hobbs said.
Hobbs said that when he took the job, he understood it to be temporary. The district has been going through a period of significant turmoil. In March, Superintendent Mike Fowler stepped down from his position as he fights a brain tumor. Hobbs said he was told they needed someone to help steady the ship before a new superintendent came in.
Just one month after his appointment, at the district’s Feb. 13 meeting, Hobbs was sporting an entirely new title: chief of staff. The next month, at Grossmont’s March 11 meeting, the board officially approved Hobbs’ title change.
Hobbs said his new gig was simply a title change. Board members had thrown a grab bag of responsibilities into his first role, but when Interim Superintendent Sandra Huezo read the job description, she felt what the board members were really looking for was a chief of staff, he said. He also argues that he’s qualified for the position, having served as a teacher, the head of a company and even a trustee at the Temecula Valley Unified School District.
‘Rushed and Totally Untransparent’
Hobbs’ hiring has already ruffled many feathers in the district. In February the board approved a plan to issue layoff notices to dozens of employees. The move came as district leaders say they’re struggling to close a multi-million-dollar budget deficit.
That rationale didn’t sit well with many in the community, who have pushed back hard against the decision. For months they’ve packed board meetings, turning them into raucous affairs. Some have even gone so far as to launch a recall effort against the board’s conservative bloc.
Fite, the sole liberal on the district’s board, shares many of the concerns raised by the community. He was also the only trustee to vote against Hobbs’ appointment.
“I think there’s a lack of transparency in several actions that we’ve undertaken since the beginning of this year,” Fite said. “I’m concerned that there may be a conflict of interest. It seems at the very least that this process was rushed and totally untransparent”
James Messina is the president of the Grossmont Educators Association, the union that represents credentialed staff in the district. He’s been a fixture at recent board meetings pushing back against the district’s layoffs. He said the creation of the chief of staff position, and Hobbs hiring, was entirely inappropriate given the layoff notices the district issued.
“I do not believe this is a time to be spending more money on the top levels of administration. Money should be spent in classrooms instead,” Messina said.
