Redlands Unified School District’s human resources director, who has been on paid leave for more than a year after state and federal investigations revealed that the district systemically failed to properly address reports of student sexual abuse, has agreed to resign.
Under a settlement agreement unanimously approved by the school board on April 22, Sabine Robertson-Phillips will remain on paid leave — at a salary of about $25,000 a month — from now until Sept. 1. At that point, her resignation will take effect and she will retire.
She then will receive a lump sum check equivalent to 10 months’ pay — about $260,000 — to cover her compensation through the remaining term of her employment contract, which ends on June 30, 2026. Robertson-Phillips also will be able to cash out 44 days of accrued vacation and be eligible to receive retiree medical benefits.
Placed on leave
Robertson-Phillips, 54, was placed on paid leave on April 25, 2024 — the same day the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights released a damning 20-page letter to Superintendent Juan Cabral with its findings from a four-year investigation, which concluded that the district, among other things, failed to respond properly to 74% of 35 reports of sexual abuse against students from 2017 to 2020.
According to the OCR’s letter, the district’s boundaries policy calls for school supervisors and the “assigned human resources administrator” to promptly investigate possible violations of sexual misconduct involving staff and students.
Scapegoating alleged
In a claim filed against the district in September, Robertson-Phillips, who has collected about $330,000 in pay from the district since she was placed on leave, alleged Redlands Unified scapegoated her and tried to fire her following the federal probe and a parallel investigation by the state Department of Justice, which released its own report a month after the OCR’s. The DOJ concluded that the district “systemically violated laws in place to protect students against and address complaints related to sexual assault, harassment and abuse.”
Robertson-Phillips alleged in her claim that the district breached the terms of its employment contract with her, and that she was never found culpable of any wrongdoing, nor had she received any negative performance evaluations in her 17 years as HR director.
The district commissioned an administrative investigation into Robertson-Phillips during her leave, but it produced no findings of misconduct, according to the settlement agreement. However, the district and Robertson-Phillips reached an impasse and decided to part ways.
“An employment dispute has arisen between the parties. No findings of misconduct were made following the district’s review of the matter. Nevertheless, the employee and employer believe it is in their respective best interests to sever the employment relationship,” according to the agreement.
No admission of wrongdoing
Per the agreement, the district will further sweeten the pot for Robertson-Phillips by paying her $150,000 to settle her claim, typically a precursor to a lawsuit. The payment will be made on June 30, 2026, when the term of Robertson-Phillips’ employment contract ends.
The terms of the settlement agreement are not an “admission or finding of liability, misconduct, or wrongdoing by either employer or employee.”
Robertson-Phillips, who began her career at Redlands Unified in 1995 as a fifth-grade teacher at Crafton Elementary School, has served as the district’s assistant superintendent of human resources since 2007.
Stephen Larson, Robertson-Phillips’ attorney, said she agreed to settle her legal claims in exchange for the district paying her everything owed under her contract plus an additional severance amount.
“This resolution, in which the district explicitly acknowledged it had not found any misconduct by Dr. Robertson-Phillips, allows her to focus on the next phase of her life, retiring effective September 1, 2025, after over 30 years of exemplary service to the district,” Larson said in a statement.
The district declined to comment.
Lisa Nakamura-Bruich has been serving as the acting assistant superintendent of human resources since Oct. 9, district spokesperson Christine Stephens said.
SCNG investigation
The OCR and DOJ investigations, which began in 2020 and 2022, respectively, followed a more than yearlong investigation by the Southern California News Group that began in 2018 and revealed that the district, for decades, frequently failed to report to authorities teachers and other employees accused of grooming and sexually abusing students.
Robertson-Phillips became a focal point of the investigation when it was revealed she allegedly obstructed a police raid at the district office in July 2013 during the investigation of former Citrus Valley High School teacher Laura Whitehurst. The two lead investigators in the case testified in sworn depositions that Robertson-Phillips was caught in her office deleting files from her computer and instructed staff not to cooperate with police, and to lawyer up if approached by detectives.
Robertson-Phillips denied the allegations, saying in an email to the Southern California News Group in 2018 she had a “proven track record of working collaboratively with the police on cases” throughout her tenure as assistant superintendent.
Whitehurst, who became impregnated by one of her victims and bore his child, pleaded guilty to six felony counts associated with three victims following her July 2013 arrest. She served six months in jail and registered as a sex offender.
Robertson-Phillips also had been aware of inappropriate conduct involving former Redlands High School special education teacher and golf coach Kevin Patrick Kirkland, who preyed on vulnerable female students for more than three years and groomed them for sex.
She twice admonished Kirkland about his conduct. The first was in June 2012, when she gave him a four-page notice of unprofessional conduct citing six incidents of Kirkland sending inappropriate text messages to his classroom aide, who subsequently reported Kirkland to school administrators, according to internal school district records, police reports and sworn depositions.
And in May 2015, Robertson-Phillips admonished Kirkland again after a parent complained he was having a “special relationship” with a student and was seen off campus with two female students buying ice cream. Robertson-Phillips warned Kirkland it was “absolutely vital” that he “maintain proper teacher-student boundaries at all times.”
None of the incidents, however, involved alleged sexual misconduct, only inappropriate teacher-student boundary violations. But student and parent complaints about Kirkland’s inappropriate conduct involving female students dated as far back as 2006 or 2007, the SCNG investigation found.
In December 2018, the district announced it was adopting sweeping reforms and implemented its ACT (Actions Create Trust) Now initiative that included 10 measures to enhance student safety and raise awareness with employees. Three years later, in 2021, the district touted those reforms as paying off.
Reports of the district’s lapses in reporting and thwarting student sexual abuse also prompted a probe by the San Bernardino County civil grand jury, which released a report in the spring of 2022 concluding that, despite the district’s best efforts, many employees were still vague on state-mandated reporter laws and did not have a clear understanding of “reasonable suspicion” — information rising to the level that it warrants reporting suspected abuse to law enforcement or the Department of Children and Family Services.
Morgan Stewart, an attorney for the Irvine law firm Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, which since 2016 has collected $45.5 million from Redlands Unified to settle lawsuits by former students claiming they were sexually abused, has long called for Robertson-Phillips’ resignation.
Though he was pleased about her resignation, Stewart was not content with the assertion she committed no wrongdoing.
“I think the testimony from the police department was pretty clear that she was culpable in covering up sexual abuse. And the findings from the Department of Justice and Office for Civil Rights investigations further confirm that,” Stewart said. “Those investigations support the conclusion that Redlands Unified has covered up and protected sexual abusers on its campuses going back 20-plus years.”
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