Utah lawmakers grilled Salt Lake City School District officials Thursday, looking for answers about the sudden and unexplained resignation of West High’s former principal.
Their questioning centered on whether the district had retaliated against Jared Wright, who argued under oath before the Utah Legislature’s Rules Review and General Oversight Committee last month that he was pushed out after refusing to stop pressing for answers about a 2023 student stabbing.
Superintendent Elizabeth Grant rejected those allegations Thursday, calling them “ludicrous.”
“There was no retaliation against employees for raising concerns about safety,” Grant said. “We welcome oversight and value the role of this committee in helping schools across Utah improve.”
Grant also spoke under oath Thursday after the committee subpoenaed her as part of a broader discussion on high school safety.
Her testimony prompted a barrage of questions from lawmakers, who seemed to leave the meeting with more questions than answers.
“I really am trying to figure out suss through this: Is this revenge or not?” Sen. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, said.
What we know
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Former West High School principal Jared Wright attends a meeting of the Rules Review and General Oversight Committee at the Capitol in Salt Lake City, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025.
District officials placed Wright on administrative leave Jan. 10 as they conducted an internal investigation, but they did not disclose the reason. Two weeks later, he resigned.
In his September testimony, Wright said the district had accused him of “falsely certifying hundreds of students at graduation” for the 2023-24 school year, which he denied.
He said a glitch in the system was preventing students’ earned credits from appearing on their transcripts, so he began working with the registrar and school staff to make sure the transcripts were updated.
Wright also said that the investigation came amid his growing friction with district leaders. He alleged those leaders told him to “stop” raising school safety concerns after a female student was wounded in 2023 when by a male student stabbed her in a West High restroom.
Grant on Thursday denied all of Wright’s allegations, including his accusation that district leaders knew the attacker had a history of violence and prior conflicts with the stabbing victim but never informed him as the school’s principal.
“Our records show no prior reports of threats or violence toward the victim,” Grant said. “If we had been aware of such information that would have been addressed.”
The attacker was expelled and did not return to West High School as he was held in a juvenile detention facility for 19 months, Grant said.
Wright sent ‘unprofessional emails,’ Grant alleges
Grant added Thursday that there were growing frustrations between herself and Wright — but they had nothing to do with his concerns about school safety.
Instead, she said, they stemmed from a series of “unprofessional” emails Wright allegedly sent to the Salt Lake City School Board of Education after it chose not to continue funding staff for campus weapons detectors initially installed in 2023. She said she met with Wright in August 2024 to discuss his behavior.
“He had written emails to two board members, demeaning their work on the board and attacking them for their votes,” Grant told lawmakers. “My frustration was not about his advocacy for safety; we were continually improving our safety systems and practices. It was about his unprofessional and inappropriate interactions with the board.”
But Sen. Brady Brammer, R-Pleasant Grove, pushed back on Grant: “Have you seen the communications from your board about Dr. Wright?”
Brammer was referring to text messages between former board members that surfaced in 2020 amid tensions over the decision to send students back to in-person classes at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The school board ultimately decided to continue with online classes only.
The texts were released in response to a public records request by parent Raina Williams, who at the time had five children in the district. They were first reported by FOX13, which is a content sharing partner with The Salt Lake Tribune.
Two members had exchanged messages attacking Wright, with one calling him “a tool” and commenting “Ef Jared.” Their frustration appeared to be over Wright supporting the district going to a hybrid schedule, with at least some classes taught in person.
Wright had written to the board, saying holding classes entirely online would “certainly have a negative impact on students.”
Grant responded to Brammer’s statement by first pointing out that she was not superintendent at the time.
“The board has statements of leadership and ethics that they create,” Grant said. “They are not employees of the district. Of course, they are my boss, so I have no oversight.”
‘Witch hunt’
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Former West High School principal Jared Wright, left, confers with his attorney during a meeting of the Rules Review and General Oversight Committee at the Capitol in Salt Lake City, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025.
The district accusing Wright of falsifying transcripts — and a subsequent complaint filed against him with the Utah Professional Practices Advisory Commission (UPPAC), which investigates allegations of educator misconduct — emerged Thursday as the biggest sticking point for lawmakers.
According to Grant, the district began an investigation in the summer of 2024, after a staffer alleged that Wright had asked her to “post credits to students’ transcripts that had been disallowed by the district.”
Grant said the investigation continued into fall, when more “troublesome information” was uncovered. She alleged the district discovered that 62% of students who graduated from West High in the 2023-24 school year were missing required credits under state law.
“In that light, shouldn’t your entire senior executive team be fired?,” McCay asked. “I mean, at the end of the day, they’re responsible for the principal.”
District officials eventually asked to meet with Wright in January this year, but, according to Grant, he said he preferred to wait until his lawyer was present. That’s when the district placed him on administrative leave, Grant said.
West High’s former assistant principal defended Wright. Sarah Thomas, who also testified during last month’s hearing, told The Tribune on Thursday that the credits had to be added manually because of a system error.
That error prevented any credits that students earned through a credit recovery program from appearing on student transcripts, she said.
The program, which Thomas said she was charged with overseeing, was developed by the district in collaboration with West High teachers and administrators to address learning loss from pandemic-related school closures.
She said that West High counselors and academic advisers went through the transcripts with a “fine-toothed comb.”
“We trust them, as administrators, to do the job that they’re licensed and hired to do,” Thomas said.
McCay argued that it seemed like the district was looking for a reason to terminate Wright.
“It sure does feel like there was a witch hunt back through the records to try and find a reason to give Mr. Wright his walking papers,” McCay said. “You can see why some of us — I’m including myself in this — can draw a line pretty clearly from 2020 behavior of Dr. Wright to [the 2025] suspension.”
UPPAC is actively investigating the matter. Wright previously told The Tribune he couldn’t speak about the situation outside of testimony because of a nondisclosure agreement.
But he did say he could lose his license, which would prevent him from keeping his current job as principal of Granger High School in the Granite School District and seeking future employment.
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