DOUGLAS COUNTY, Nev. – Michael Roth, the current/former Information Technology (IT) Director for the Douglas County School District, is suing after the district attempted to fire him in what he claimed was a retaliatory measure over his assistance in a records request violation case against the Douglas County School Board.

The fate of three current and one former Douglas County School Board trustees is still unknown in regard to an earlier lawsuit filed by four Douglas County residents which ultimately found the board violated the law by refusing to turn over incriminating emails and text messages to the public, following directives from former board attorney Joey Gilbert. 

Gilbert has not responded to a request for comment on this case.

Roth moved to Douglas County from Alaska for the IT Director position, which he began in August 2023.  Within the role, he was charged with handling public records requests by searching through district emails for specific information. 

Roth said his part in the investigation is what landed him in the district’s hot seat. 

A judge later found the district and the trustees were liable in that case, and settlement terms — which trustees may have to pony up personal funds to pay — have not yet been determined. 

One day outside of work, he was reading the Miller lawsuit when he noticed a personal email of Trustee Susan Jansen had been used as part of these allegations. 

“As the IT director, I only have access to school district emails,”  Roth said. “But suppose there is a chain of emails, or emails to a whole bunch of people’s personal email, and on accident you copied one person’s work email — well then I’d be able to see it.”

When Roth was at work, he did just that. He searched the database as part of the public records request, and one of the first things he located was Gilbert emailing the four trustees — two by their personal emails, and two by their district-provided emails —  to schedule a Zoom meeting to discuss the lawsuit. 

Roth had reasonable suspicion that these communications showed off-the-record collusion as to Board officer elections and agenda items … The communications suggested formation of walking quorums, planning of Board business outside of public meetings, including installing officers, and allowing financial backers to dictate the Board’s agenda, to include firing the Superintendent and District counsel and changing policy relating to discrimination against transgender students. – Roth v. DCSD

“Things just get bad and bad and worse,” Roth said. “They shouldn’t be setting up a Zoom meeting for [only] four board members, because it violates quorum rules, and on top of that it’s literally about public records requests for the lawsuit, and the whole lawsuit was about how they’re doing things on their personal email. But [Gilbert’s office] is still sending things to their personal emails, even after the [Miller] lawsuit was already filed.” 

Since realizing trustees had lied to the public in their assertions that documents the public sought did not exist (they did) and the fact that they were still conducting business using their private emails according to Roth, he filed a formal whistleblower complaint to a number of authorities and the media, alleging mismanagement, ethical issues, and potentially illegal decisions taken by the board and Gilbert. 

The Complaints

Roth documented evidence of what he believed to be illegal or unethical activity throughout his time with the district, and filed whistleblower complaints on Dec. 20, 2023, Jan. 5, 2024, and June 21, 2024 directly or indirectly to a deputy sheriff assigned to the district, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, the Acting Superintendent of the District, the State Bar of Nevada, the U.S. Department of Education, the Nevada Attorney General’s Office, and the Nevada Public Agency Insurance Pool (POOL/PACT), according to the lawsuit. 

Douglas County Superintendent Frankie Alvarado said they would not be providing comment on personnel matters when asked for comment. 

Roth said the reason trustees and district staff are told not to use personal emails or phones to conduct official district business is because the district by law has to be able to produce records to the public, which doesn’t end when a trustee leaves office. 

“If you’re doing something on your personal phone, like for example, Doug Englekirk isn’t a board member now, but what if we needed to get stuff off of his personal phone because he used it for district purposes, which he admitted to. So how do you get it? You’re not in compliance with public record laws if you’re not retaining these records.” 

During the Miller hearing, trustees testified under oath they had provided all documents, knowing they had not, Roth’s lawsuit states, and “Roth stood ready with testimony to assist the plaintiffs in Miller in establishing this alleged falsehood.” 

He also contacted the Record Courier, Gardnerville’s local newspaper, and provided whistleblower information about Nick Maier.

Maier is a Douglas County resident who’s funded campaigns for several politicians including three of the school board trustees named in the Miller lawsuit. 

Emails and text messages secured during the Miller lawsuit showed that Maier, in addition to funding the trustees’ campaigns, was also “ordering them around,” as Roth put it. 

“And what Nick Maier did was after he told them to fire the [district’s previous] law firm and hire Joey Gilbert instead, then he did a gigantic records request,” Roth said. “He did this huge records request which was going to enrich Joey Gilbert, and Joey Gilbert’s the guy that he had installed, right? So there’s probably collusion.” 

After being hired as district counsel, one of the first things the board did was give Joey Gilbert the task of processing of public record’s requests for $325 an hour, which previously was done by the Superintendent’s office at no additional cost. Then, they also created fees for public records that under state law, might be considered illegal for the large amount it would cost the public. Gilbert claimed this was because individuals against the board were creating requests to drive up costs, along with “frivolous lawsuits and complaints.” 

However, only a few weeks after Gilbert’s declaration, Roth made public that Maier had requested a total of 30,000 emails representing 7.7 gigabytes of data, the largest request by far. 

Despite his complaint, however, “it didn’t go anywhere,” said Roth. He said Maier later responded stating that “nothing criminal had occurred, and anyone can ask for public records at any time.” 

However, the issues didn’t end. During a school board meeting, then-President Susan Jansen had a “hot mic” moment in which she called a commenter a “piece of shit.” Roth revealed the woman’s son was the attorney for the group of individuals suing the trustees in the records lawsuit. 

“Then she forgave herself and accepted her own apology, cause you know, you can do that, I guess,” Roth said. “Then at a later meeting, this little old woman is giving public comment and she says, ‘I don’t like what’s going on. Susan, you shouldn’t have called someone a piece of shit, this is not good behavior, etc.’ — she was unhappy with what Jansen had said. So Jansen hits the gavel and says ‘stop, stop, stop talking. Officers, taking her out.’ And this little old lady literally freezes, because she’s shocked.” 

Roth said he had been sitting next to the officers at the time, and said they too were confused by Jansen’s directive. 

“They weren’t gonna go and drag her out,” Roth added. The woman left the meeting, and later, Roth learned her name and contacted her. He told her what Jansen had done was wrong, and he believed it was illegal as Jansen had impeded her freedom of speech. 

Roth then filed a second complaint with the woman, and this one he sent to the Department of Education and the Office of Civil Rights. The Office of Civil Rights responded that two of Roth’s claims meet the requirements for age discrimination and retaliation, and they ordered the Department of Education to begin an investigation and/or mediation into the complaints. 

POOL/PACT drops trustees due to alleged liability concerns

Next, Roth also sent the complaint to the Nevada Ethics Commission, and to POOL/PACT, a non-profit that provides insurance coverage for public entities. 

“I basically told [POOL/PACT] ‘you guys are gonna lose that civil case. These board members are corrupt, they’re lying under oath,’ all kinds of stuff. And I said, ‘You’re the insurer that’s paying for this. This is not going to go well for you. I’m trying to help you out and protect the district.’” 

Roth said after the Miller judge ruled trustees could be held personally liable, they were forced to hire counsel to represent them separately from the district. Initially, POOL/PACT provided counsel for them, but after Roth provided this information to them, that counsel dropped the trustees he said.

The school district did not respond to a request for comment on this allegation. 

“The insurance said, ‘not only are we gonna pull the attorney for you, we’re also gonna pull coverage,’” Roth said. “’We’re not gonna cover the individual trustees if they broke the law,’ because they’re not eligible for it.” 

Soon after, Roth said, Trustee Dave Burns put a notice on the agenda stating the district was going to pay to provide another attorney (at no cost to the trustees) to represent them in their ethics complaint — which the board then voted to approve.

This led to another ethics complaint filed not by Roth, but by someone involved in the Miller records lawsuit.

“They can’t put something on the agenda that’s going to benefit themselves at the taxpayer’s expense when it’s something that they did wrong,” Roth said. “They found them liable that they broke the law, that they violated ethics.” 

According to documents from the Ethics Commision Review Panel, following its investigation it found that there was enough evidence to find trustees had acted unethically. It stated the named trustees must: 

• i. Comply with the Ethics Law for a specified period of one year from the Panel’s approval of the deferral agreement without being the subject of another complaint arising from an alleged violation of the Ethics Law and for which a review panel determines there is just and sufficient cause for the Commission to render an opinion in the matter;
• ii. Receive training approved by the Executive Director within 60 days of approval of the deferral agreement; and
• iii. Certify in writing to the Executive Director that he has read and understands the disclosure and abstention chapters of the Ethics Manual.

It further states if the Review Panel does not approve the deferral agreement or if the trustees decline the agreement, then the Review Panel will refer the complaint to the Commission for further proceedings. 

Roth’s attempted termination

While Roth’s complaints against the district were ongoing, another issue was brewing behind the scenes. While Roth was initially hired by former-HR Director Joe Girdner, he said he never actually met the man. By the time Roth was on-boarded, Girdner had resigned after working for decades in education administration, and was replaced by the next director, Adam Dedmon. 

Dedmon was appointed to the position in September 2023. However, he only lasted eight months before resigning despite having graduated from the district as a student, then returning to spend another 20 years within it as an educator, coach and principal. 

Roth said this decision was made not because Dedmon accepted a new job, as Dedmon told the Record Courier, but because he was being harassed by members of the school board. 

Dedmon has not returned a request for comment at this time.

“He told me that Burns and Jansen were after him,” Roth said. “There was even an altercation at Douglas High School where the two board members were trying to stick themselves in the middle of a human resources situation.”

Roth said he had been told of an incident at the high school during which Dedmon allegedly told the trustees they had no say over human resource issues and it was his job to handle district employees. 

“And there was an actual altercation,” Roth said. “We [were tasked] to get video footage surveillance of it, but the camera was too far away. We ended up having to put more cameras up in that particular hallway because of this situation.” 

Shortly after this alleged incident, Dedmon put in his resignation, and then filed a complaint against Jansen and Burns in May 2024. The board would not comment on the nature of the complaint at the time, only that there were “a lot of different allegations.” 

Roth said, after Dedmon had resigned and was no longer working with the district, he called Roth and asked to have access to his district emails. 

“I told him if he told me exactly what it was, I could go in and get it for him without giving him access, but he wanted to find different things, and he had an Apple account that was tied to his work email that he needed to get into, and it was going to be a pain in the neck,” he said. “So I granted him temporary access to his email accounts, but not his network accounts, which was super limited.” 

Roth said after he provided this access to Dedmon, people in his office “threw him under the bus,” and reported his actions to the board and the new superintendent, Frankie Alvarado, who Roth said had started the position about a week beforehand. 

However, Roth insists that he did not need to receive permission from the district to provide the emails to Dedmon in the first place. 

Roth denies wrongdoing

Against the district’s claims, Roth argues he was fully within his rights as IT Director to provide access without the permission from the Superintendent’s Office as he had been granted agency by the acting superintendent when hired, and Dedmon had not filed a formal records request.

“If it’s a public record’s request, it has to go through the Superintendent’s Office,” Roth explained. “But in Adam’s case, it wasn’t like he was asking for a document in someone else’s email or something. This was an email that was recently his.”

Roth said it was standard procedure for former staff or even students to contact the district and ask for their email accounts to be turned back on temporarily so they can retrieve documents or emails. 

“If someone calls me and says they need access, I don’t know who they are,” Roth said. “So HR would verify who it is, and then tell me it was okay to give them access. But when Adam called me, I knew it was Adam – he had been who I’d send people to for verification. I didn’t need them to verify him, since I knew who he was and could verify him myself. I’m a high-ranking employee in the district — I can make those kinds of calls.” 

Roth’s lawsuit also states that when he was hired, the acting superintendent at time said they “trusted Roth to make decisions in the technology area and that the Superintendent would not micromanage those decisions.” 

Roth said he understands that the district is unhappy that Dedmon retrieved these files to gather evidence for his complaint, but it had never been denied to anyone before, regardless of their reasoning for wanting to gain access. 

“We actually allow something called Google Takeout, which allows students and staff on their last day to retrieve all of their documents, emails and drive files,” Roth said. “So he could have gotten all of these things on his last day, but instead, for whatever reason, he didn’t and came back and said ‘Hey, I didn’t do this, I would like to get them now.’” 

Roth said the situation would have been different if Dedmon had been fired, left on bad terms, or was under investigation for stealing information or doing something illegal. But Dedmon left under good terms, and Roth was never instructed to deny him access to his account as part of Dedmon’s resignation process. 

Roth said he was called down to Superintendent Alvarado’s office where he faced termination. 

Due process ignored

Roth said during the discussion in Alvarado’s office, the superintendent fully intended to fire him without allowing him due process. 

“They gave me a one page paper that said ‘we don’t like what you did with the board members’ emails, and you gave someone that used to be an employee access to their email,’” Roth said. “So they were really trying to find a good reason [to fire me].”

Roth said Alvarado “grilled” him on the issue, and asked him if he was aware that Dedmon has a complaint against the district, and said this situation is going to make the district look bad. 

As to the complaints he’d filed about the trustee’s emails, Roth said he was blunt: he saw the trustees were engaging in behavior he believed to be illegal, and he reported it.

“I said, listen, if there’s some evidence in there that the district did something wrong, that’s too bad,” Roth said. “If I feel there’s something going on inside the email system that’s illegal, and especially if I report it to the sheriff’s office, the bar, ethics commission, attorney general’s office, whatever, I don’t need a public records request.” 

For example, if he discovered someone using the district’s network to view child pornography (which he clarified has not happened, and is only a hypothetical), it’s his job to secure the network and report the crime to law enforcement without needing permission. 

When it came to the school board member’s emails, he had been tasked with searching the emails for evidence the board members had been breaking the law. The fact that he went above and beyond by conducting additional searches with personal emails, leading to the discovery of an additional trove of incriminating emails, is the actual reason for what he claims is the district’s retaliation against him. 

“They would have never been turned over unless I would have done those [additional] searches,” Roth said. “It’s one thing if I didn’t know they were using their personal emails, but I did know, and it was my responsibility to make sure the records requests were complete.” 

Claims of Retaliation 

Roth was hired at the district at the end of August 2023, and was put on administrative leave less than a year later in July 2024 despite receiving “excellent” marks on all of his reviews, he said. However, he is still technically employed with the district — and has continued to be paid for the past seven months while being barred from working. 

On Oct. 5, 2024, the district notified Roth with its intention to dismiss him, according to Roth’s lawsuit. 

According to the lawsuit, Roth requested “certain documentation,” and the district agreed to provide it. However, the documents had not been provided by the time of the termination hearing, and Roth asked for a time extension. The lawsuit alleges the district told Roth he was “seeking irrelevant documents” and that the district “would not continue to pay Roth while on the leave it ordered him to take,” the lawsuit alleged. 

He filed his lawsuit against the district in November 2024 after negotiations broke down, claiming retaliation and a violation of his First Amendment Rights. 

Roth said the district was not happy Roth had submitted his complaints, and the board majority was not happy he had testified against them and turned over their additional emails. It was only a matter of time before they found a reason to fire him, as that was their intent all along, he claimed. 

“So this Adam Dedmon thing, I think in their mind was like, ‘Oh well he gave a prior employee access to his email and his drive, this might work.’”

He said his termination hearing was mishandled from the beginning, and in his opinion, his due process was violated because the district had already planned to terminate him regardless of the hearing. 

First, he said, the district intended to have his termination meeting overseen by Gilbert, who by that point, Roth had already filed multiple complaints against. 

“It was totally inappropriate and probably illegal to have him [there],” Roth said. A new attorney was brought in, and he said the district gave him one option: they said he could resign if he signed over his rights to sue and/or file complaints against the district. 

However, this wasn’t an actual negotiation, Roth said, because he could resign at any point. What it told them was that the district was already planning to fire him. 

Roth said he attended his due process hearing in Alvarado’s office where he was told he was being terminated for how he’d handled the board member’s emails, and for allowing Dedmon to access his emails without permission. However, Roth said he told Alvarado he was a whistleblower, and implied the district could “get into trouble” if they fired him in retribution for his complaints. 

“I guess I spooked him,” Roth said. “He decided to just let me leave. I walked out, and they decided to not terminate me.” 

‘Spooked’ Superintendent rescinds termination 

When Roth’s paycheck did not arrive a few days after his meeting with Alvarado, and he was directed to pick up paper checks, he learned that he had been terminated prior to his due process hearing, which he said is against the law. 

It was only after Roth “spooked” Alvarado that he changed his mind and instructed HR to un-fire Roth, he claimed, none of which was ever told to Roth himself. HR was able to revert everything except for the direct deposit, which caused Roth to suspect something was amiss. 

Documents Roth acquired as part of a records request support his claims, in which district staff go back and forth about Roth’s termination, his paper check and final pay, and then “turning back on” his benefits.

Although the District was ostensibly following “due process” in its charges against Roth, the Board majority and the Superintendent had already decided Roth should be terminated, rendering the “due process” a sham, meaning, although due process does not require a particular result, it does require a meaningful opportunity to be heard, and that opportunity is not meaningful if the decision maker does not intend to listen to what the employee has to say. – Roth v. DCSD 

Roth was instead placed on immediate administrative leave, where he has remained while he fights the district’s termination efforts, but he said the issues did not stop there. 

During the Miller lawsuit, Roth alleged the presiding judge told counsel Roth would need to sign off that all pertinent records had now been turned over as part of the suit. Roth said counsel told the court publicly that Roth was on administrative leave, and they “didn’t know where that was going to go,” so he would not be able to sign off.

“They announced this to the world,” Roth said. “What they were saying damaged my credibility, because you don’t know why someone’s been placed on administrative leave. I could have stolen something or hurt someone. Plus, it was a lie; of course I could sign it, I’m still on call, they’re still paying me, I’m still the IT Director.” 

Later, when Roth was called to testify in the records lawsuit against the district, he received an email with another set of termination documents. 

“It’s a technical legal [form] for the meeting where they’re gonna terminate you,” Roth explained. “While I was in the courthouse, in the hallway, waiting to be called as a witness [against the trustees], [the district] sent me these termination documents. So they were screwing with me which, in my opinion, is witness tampering, or witness intimidation. At the very least, it’s retribution.” 

While the district had first claimed he was being terminated because of the way he’d handled trustee emails in addition to their claim he’d violated terms by providing Dedmon access to his account, in the subsequent attempt at termination, they removed mention of the board members emails entirely, Roth said. 

“They didn’t want to chase after me for the whistleblowing because I think it would make them look stupid,” Roth explained. 

On multiple occasions, Roth said, his attorney attempted to reach out to the district to negotiate, but they refused. After one such email, Alvarado selected “reply all” to a message (Roth believes he meant to select “forward”), which ended up including Roth’s attorney. The message was meant for other district personnel, stating they were going to try to file complaints against his attorney, Roth said.

The district denied a request for comment to discuss the complaint and lawsuit.

Roth put in a public records request to determine what was going on behind the scenes, and according to him, they initially said his request would retune “hundreds of thousands of documents,” and therefore they were not going to provide any documents. Then, after conceding to provide documents, he said, they first asked for extra time to locate the documents, then told him the documents he was requesting did not exist. When he did eventually receive a record, it was “entirely blotched out in black” – the entire document had been censored, he claimed. Later, however, they agreed to provide him the document uncensored.

While on administrative leave, the Department of Education finally got back to him on his complaint regarding Jansen’s behavior during the school board meeting where she tried to throw the “little old lady” public commenter out. Roth told them since he’d made his complaint, he’d been retaliated against and placed on leave. 

“So the Department of Ed called the district and said, ‘we’re going to give you the option to mediate this with our mediator, or you get an automatic full investigation,’” Roth said. “So in less than two hours after the call, suddenly they’re now interested in mediation.” 

The mediator reached out to Roth on Dec. 16 to begin the mediation process. 

Roth said he is awaiting the mediation to determine whether or not he can go back to work, as well as for his other complaints to eventually be heard. His lawsuit against the district is ongoing. 

By Kelsey Penrose, CarsonNow.org