Despite state law prohibiting public bodies from settling lawsuits confidentially, Oxnard Union High School District is negotiating such a settlement in a lawsuit filed against the district by a former coach of the Channel Islands High School girls' softball team.

The parties remain in settlement negotiations. The plaintiff's attorney, Allen Ball, said the district demanded a confidential settlement agreement, so he could not comment further on the suit.

Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, said governments cannot bind themselves in confidential settlement agreements.

Of course, they may choose to do so despite the law, Scheer said, just to make it difficult for anyone to obtain the information.

"If they're clever, what they're doing is forcing you to have to sue them to get what you should be able to get without going to court," he said.

The former coach, Cynthia Perez, claims the school unlawfully fired her a year ago after hearing an unsubstantiated allegation that she was a pedophile.

Perez, who is gay, said Glenn Alan defamed her when he told the school she was a pedophile. Oxnard Union High School District officials fired her, violating state law that prohibits discrimination because of sexual orientation, Perez's lawsuit claims.

Alan's connection to the schools, if any, was unclear. An Oxnard district official told Perez about "a nonconfirmed telephone call from a parent of an adult former player who had played on the Ventura College softball team when the plaintiff had been the coach years prior," the suit states.

According to the suit, Alan contacted the district in March 2006 and made the accusation. He said she had lost a coaching job at Ventura College because of a relationship she had with an adult softball player there, the suit says.

Perez was subsequently suspended from coaching the high school team and told not to contact students or players, her suit claims. The next day, she talked to a coach for the team "in order to provide the documents necessary to permit the student players to play their games" in her absence. She was fired the next day, her suit claims.

Student players were then given documents suggesting she'd had "improper sexual relations with the players" in an effort to justify a firing that was done without an investigation, Perez states.

The district's lawyer leading the case, Dennis J. Walsh, did not return three phone calls placed over two days seeking comment. Another lawyer for the district, Jack Parham, declined to comment.

Alan could not be located for comment, and Perez's lawyer said he has been unable to locate him.

Oxnard Union High School District filed a formal objection to the plaintiff's complaint in May, stating Perez's arguments were flawed. Among its objections, the school district argued it was not clear from the allegations that the district employees knew her sexual orientation.

The district canceled a June 20 hearing on the matter, according to court records, "as there was ongoing settlement negotiations in this matter."

No further hearings are scheduled at this time as the parties negotiate.

School Superintendent Jody Dunlap said the case is in the lawyer's hands.

"My information is that parties are discussing trying to resolve issues," she said. "So I can't comment at this time. I won't have any specific information until this comes to closure."