On Wednesday, September 6, the Coronado Unified School District Governing Board voted in a special meeting to accept the resignation and release agreement of the CHS High School Assistant Principal, Shane Bavis. The agreement, between the Board of Education and Bavis, was ratified by the CUSD school board in a 4-0 vote taken during closed session.
But the resignation will not take effect until June 2024, or until the employee obtains comparable school employment, according to the agreement shared with the Coronado Times via email after the meeting. Until this time, Bavis will remain on paid leave, retaining his regular pay and benefits, according to a copy of the agreement, obtained from CUSD. He will also be paid a lump sum of $42,128 (representing four months salary) on September 30, 2023.
“Employee will make good faith efforts to secure comparable school employment outside of the District,” reads the agreement. “Should Employee secure such comparable school employment, the District will remove him from paid administrative leave effective on his first date of such new employment, and the Resignation Date will become that date.”
The District and employee agreed it was in their best interests to end their employment relationship under mutually agreeable terms, according to a printed statement from CUSD, distributed at the meeting.
The agreement resolves a personel matter that began on May 24, 2023, after the district said inappropriate material may have been shared to some students at the school. This occurred after some students said they were airdropped videos of a man who appeared to be a CHS faculty member in a sexually explicit video exchange with an unidentified person. In addition, screenshots of the video were reportedly posted in some CHS bathrooms. Bavis was placed on paid administrative leave.
The next day, the Coronado Police Department launched an investigation, sharing in a Facebook post that the department recognized “the significance and potential impact this case may have on the community,” and that they were “mobilizing their resources and expertise to conduct a comprehensive investigation.”
According to the agreement, the employee “has maintained his complete innocence.”
The Coronado Times has reached out to the Coronado Police Department, but Lea Corbin, Community Relations Public Information Officer for the Department, had no updates to share. CUSD said it will not comment on any ongoing investigations.
According to the district, CHS currently has a fully-staffed administrative team with the support of an interim assistant principal. The search for a permanent assistant principal will being immediately.
This report has been updated to include new information shared by CUSD after the meeting via email included in the Resignation and Release Agreement.
The report has been updated to share the unredacted version of the agreement, which names Shane Bavis. It has also been updated to include a response from the Coronado Police Department.
