VISTA - The Guajome Park Academy charter school is asking a federal judge for permission to expand a lawsuit in which the school alleges that a student's grades were accessed improperly through the school's computer system and were posted on a Web site that is critical of the school.

Download The Report

Originally filed March 24, the school's lawsuit alleged that grade information was wrongly obtained by Beau Duperry, a former student, and David McCulloch, a former school employee, to try to prove an allegation that a student's grade was changed improperly. In the lawsuit, the school called the grade-change allegation false.

In documents filed Friday, the school asks to amend its lawsuit to add four people alleged to have been involved with the Web site, www.guajomeunderground.org, as defendants in the case, in which the school is seeking an unspecified amount of money in damages.

The proposed amended lawsuit would add allegations that Craig and Lisa James of Escondido, Teri Gerent of Vista, and Ed Brown of Oceanside conspired with Duperry to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Duperry and McCulloch were alleged to have violated that law in the original lawsuit.

Echoing statements the school's chief business officer, Carla Skaggs, has made in response to previous inquiries about the lawsuit, Mark Leonard, the school's attorney, said Monday that the school and its officials will not comment on pending litigation and that the documents filed on behalf of the school "speak for themselves."

Duperry agreed in July to accept a civil judgment against him, to pay the school $11,000, and to "fully and unconditionally cooperate" with the school's investigation of the alleged computer breach, court documents stated.

McCulloch filed a document in July in which he described the allegations against him as groundless and alleged that a person could infer that Guajome Park Academy filed the lawsuit as a " 'red herring' designed to distract public attention from criticism" of the school, including the grade-change allegation.

Craig James provided a written statement Monday in response to questions about the school trying to add he and his wife to the lawsuit.

"My only 'crime' was to exercise my first-amendment rights by publicizing opinions about (school Superintendent) Penny Harrison's poor leadership, strikingly high teacher turnover, and student dissatisfaction at Guajome Park Academy," Craig James wrote. "I'm sadly looking forward to my day in court, when I hope these allegations will be shown as nothing more than an attempt to silence whistleblowers using the taxpayer's money."

Attempts Monday to reach Gerent and Brown were unsuccessful.

The proposed amended lawsuit alleges that Duperry said in a deposition that he used a server owned by McCulloch to access the school's computer database without authorization, reviewed confidential grade information, and posted a student's grade information on a restricted portion of the guajomeunderground.org site.

The proposed amended lawsuit alleges that it can be inferred that Craig and Lisa James, Gerent, and Brown agreed with Duperry's "unlawful actions and intended that such actions be committed" based on messages posted on a "restricted forum" section of the web site and other statements attributed to them.

- Contact staff writer Scott Marshall at (760) 631-6623 or smarshall@nctimes.com. Comment at nctimes.com.

On the Net:

http://www.gpa-inc.com/default.aspx

http://www.guajomeunderground.org/phpBB/

Previous articles:

Ex-student to pay Guajome Park Academy $11K

Guajome Park Academy sues former employee and former student