The Chula Vista Elementary School District last month agreed to pay more than $360,000 as part of a resignation agreement with the district’s former Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Jason Romero, who resigned from the district last month for unexplained reasons.
Following Romero’s Dec. 17 resignation, both the district and Romero characterized his departure as voluntary, saying in a joint statement that the district had made no findings of wrongdoing against Romero and that Romero was neither fired nor resigned in lieu of termination.
A signed copy of Romero’s resignation agreement obtained by Voice of San Diego says the agreement is intended to resolve what it calls “all issues and any possible disputes between [Romero and the district] arising from or related to Romero’s employment with and separation from the District.”
The agreement does not specify what it means by “all issues and any possible disputes.”
Jason Goldwater, Romero’s attorney, said in an email to Voice that the agreement “does not confirm the existence of a dispute, and I am unable to confirm any such dispute.”
The agreement earmarks $147,500 of the district’s total payout to Romero to reimburse unspecified “attorneys’ fees and costs” incurred by a law firm representing Romero.
“It is common for separation agreements to include provisions addressing attorney fees,” Goldwater said.
In addition to the legal fees, the agreement states that the district will pay Romero $217,324, which the agreement says is the equivalent of 16 months of Romero’s base salary after subtracting the payment to his attorney.
District Trustee Francisco Tamayo confirmed that the district will pay a total of more than $360,000 in connection with Romero’s resignation – $217,324 to Romero, plus $147,500 to his attorney.
At Wednesday’s meeting of the district’s Board of Trustees, Voice asked Superintendent Eduardo Reyes a series of questions about the monetary amounts specified in the agreement with Romero.
Reyes declined to comment about the agreement entirely and said he could not confirm what payments would be made to Romero or how much the district would pay in total.
Other board members also declined to comment or did not respond to questions.
In addition to the monetary payment to Romero, the agreement states that Romero will remain on paid administrative leave until Feb. 27, 2026.
The agreement also entitles Romero to keep his district health benefits coverage until June 30, 2027, unless he gets another job with health benefits before that date.
The agreement requires both Romero and the district to keep the terms of Romero’s resignation confidential and limits what the district can disclose to future employers about Romero’s tenure at the district.
Goldwater characterized both of those provisions as “standard in separation agreements.”
“The district agreed to provide Mr. Romero with an agreed‑upon positive letter of recommendation,” said Goldwater.
The agreement further prohibits both Romero and the district from making disparaging or damaging comments about one another and prohibits the district from saying Romero was terminated.
Goldwater said his “ability to comment is limited” because “the agreement was intended to be confidential.”
The district provided a copy of the resignation agreement to Voice in response to a public records request.
Romero oversaw hiring and personnel matters for the Chula Vista district. His resignation followed a sequence of events last year that focused attention on him and the department he ran.
Last April, a former chief operating officer for the district accused Romero of pressuring him to host a fundraiser for two school board candidates. Romero denied the allegation and the district hired a law firm to investigate the matter.
At the district’s September school board meeting, a district trustee reported that evidence gathered by the law firm did not support the chief operating officer’s claims. “No evidence of malfeasance, wrongdoing or ethical violations was found,” the trustee said.
The following month, the district placed Romero on administrative leave for initially unexplained reasons. In a subsequent statement, a district spokesperson said the district placed Romero on leave “to preserve the integrity” of a new, separate internal investigation.
That investigation was an inquiry into what Goldwater said in an email was the after-hours use of a school playing field by an extracurricular sports league in which Romero volunteers as a coach.
Goldwater said it was his understanding that the investigation “was minor and discrete, and I am not aware that any findings were made. As the district has already confirmed – including in the agreement you now possess – the district did not find that Mr. Romero committed any misconduct.”
The same week the district confirmed to Voice that it had placed Romero on leave, trustees at their October, 2025 school board meeting made public results of an external audit of the human resources department that found multiple problems in the department’s operations.
A district spokesperson said Romero’s leave was not related to the audit.
The audit, conducted by a state-created agency that helps school districts with financial, operational and data management challenges, found what auditors called numerous “inefficiencies and inconsistencies” in the human resources department, including outdated paper-based hiring processes, “data duplication and procedural delays” and an “absence of standard operating procedures.”
At the Dec. 17 school board meeting during which trustees approved the $360,000 resignation agreement with Romero, Assistant Superintendent for Business Services Mark Pong told trustees the district currently faces a $33.6 million deficit.
Pong said the district would need to make spending cuts to avoid depleting its economic uncertainty reserves.
“We still need to continue with our budget solutions plan,” Pong said.