(KRON) — The principal at a high school in the East Bay resigned after an investigation determined he’d used the Grindr app to pursue sex with both a former and a current student. The former principal, Jonathan M. Fey, was the subject of a report from the Pleasanton Unified School District that was first published by EdSource.
The investigation into Fey, the former principal of Amador Valley High School, was initiated after a former student of the school alleged Fey engaged in sexual communications with him via Grindr. Another complainant alleged he had similarly been contacted over Grindr by Fey, while he was still a student at Amador Valley High.
The district’s published investigation contains screenshots of communications from Fey from a Grindr account dubbed “eyes emoji.”
“I really have always liked you,” said the Grindr user “eyes emoji,” in the communications shown in the report. “Didn’t you notice last year I would go out of my way to say hi or smile every time I saw you?”
“Face it, ur good looking. You have a subtle fem side to you that is extremely appealing to me,” he says at another point in the communications. “I’m not sure why; but I felt like you had a confidence about yourself and who you were as a person. I felt like getting to know you and the source of that strength, your story would help me be a better person.”
In another communication, the student who reported the incident tells Fey, “this is embarrassing to read. I don’t want to sound rude but you a grown man with a wife and kids and you’re acting like this is your first high school relationship. Honestly, i’m not sure what you’re expecting. The fact that you used to be my principal when I was in high school and the age difference is just so creepy.”
The student told authorities that around the time he first began communicating with “eyes emoji,” Fey followed him on Instagram the following day, which he did not believe was a coincidence.
In a separate communication detailed in the report, between the “eyes emoji” Grindr account and another complainant who was a current student at Amador, Fey told the student that “there’s a part of me that would love a secret school tryst.”
Fey, 54, who had worked at Amador Valley High School in the Pleasanton Unified School District since 2022, was notified Feb. 28 that he was being fired, following months on administrative leave. He appealed to an administrative law judge before accepting a $254,000 settlement last week that includes legal fees and back pay.
“The allegations made against me are false,” Fey said in a written statement issued by a San Jose public relations firm.
Fey’s settlement and disclosure of the district’s investigative findings come at a time when California school districts are facing a reckoning from lawsuits brought under a state law allowing victims to sue for alleged assaults that in some cases date back to the 1960s and 1970s.
Rough estimations have found that the cost to school districts in monetary awards could reach $4 billion in these cases that benefit from the lifting or expansion of the statute of limitations. It was not immediately clear if any lawsuits have been filed involving Fey. He taught in the Fremont Union High School and Mt. Diablo Unified School District before being hired in Pleasanton.
EdSource and the Pleasanton Weekly both filed a public records request seeking information about Fey’s employment status and the investigation.
In an unsigned statement included in the release of the Fey report, district officials wrote it is their “sincere hope that the district’s prompt actions in response to these allegations, and Mr. Fey’s separation from the district, will bring closure to all those involved.”
The statement urged parents who have any concerns about their children or are aware that they have “been subjected to inappropriate conduct” to make reports to the district and Pleasanton police.
Justin Brown, the Pleasanton Unified School District Board President, told EdSource Wednesday that “a neutral third-party investigator substantiated allegations of misconduct by Mr. Fey, which the district and the board of trustees took seriously.” The district, Brown said, “chose to settle the upcoming (appeal) to avoid subjecting students and staffers the stressors of testifying in an adversarial hearing” and to “preserve resources that otherwise would be spent in litigation.”
Bay City News contributed to this report.
