Wendy Sarnoff spent three decades building Venice High School's music and choir department from the ground up, but her career there ended in 2023 amid a bitter dispute now playing out in a Los Angeles courtroom. The 70-year-old former choir director alleges she was pushed out of her job through age discrimination, harassment and retaliation, while Los Angeles Unified School District attorneys counter with allegations that Sarnoff berated and insulted her own students. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge is now deciding whether the case moves forward to trial.
Judge Cherol J. Nellon heard oral arguments on LAUSD's motion to dismiss the case on Monday and took the matter under submission, according to The Independent. Sarnoff sued the district in October 2024, claiming years of workplace bullying forced her to quit a job she had held since being hired by LAUSD in 1991. She began teaching at Venice High School two years later, originally as a science teacher, before spending the next thirty years transforming the school's music and choir program into an established department, as detailed by MyNewsLA.
Dueling Accounts of Sarnoff's Final Years
According to the Independent, Sarnoff claims colleagues mocked her as too old and hopeless when she asked for technical help, and that she was ridiculed as old and old school during faculty meetings. She has said she felt like the school's laughingstock as far back as 2019, the same year an LAUSD assistant principal repeatedly pushed her to retire, per the seed reporting. Sarnoff also alleges colleagues denied her computer training and that the district refused to replace a district-issued computer after it was stolen, forcing her to raise funds herself to buy a replacement.
LAUSD's attorneys have denied age bias in their court pleadings and instead point to an internal investigation into Sarnoff's own conduct. The district's lawyers allege Sarnoff announced her classroom smelled like a French brothel, called students stupid, an idiot and not bright, and told students they should die if they could not sing the Star-Spangled Banner. LAUSD investigated her conduct in 2023, and that October, Venice High's principal issued Sarnoff a written statement warning of a possible notice of unsatisfactory act with suspension, according to MyNewsLA. The district never formally carried out that discipline because Sarnoff retired and resigned shortly afterward.
Retaliation Claims and the Path to Court
Sarnoff's attorneys allege in court filings that the Venice High principal asked district administrators to mark her ineligible for rehire even before she had formally submitted her resignation in late 2023, a detail also reported by MyNewsLA. That sequencing sits at the center of the legal dispute: LAUSD contends its documentation of student complaints gives it a legitimate, non-discriminatory basis for its actions, while Sarnoff's side argues the timing of the ineligibility request alongside the alleged ageist remarks raises a triable question of pretext for a jury to decide, per the same account. LAUSD first moved to dismiss the lawsuit in December 2025, arguing the case lacked legal merit, according to KFI AM 640.
California's Fair Employment and Housing Act protects workers 40 and older from age-based discrimination, harassment and retaliation, and gives them up to three years to file an administrative complaint with the state's Civil Rights Department, according to information compiled by Kramer Law. The law provides broader remedies than federal statutes, including emotional distress damages. Separately, under LAUSD's disciplinary procedures and collective bargaining agreements, a notice of unsatisfactory service or act can carry an unpaid suspension of up to 15 working days, and teachers must file any appeal within just three school days, according to the United Teachers Los Angeles union, which treats such appeals as emergency filings.
A Legacy Built on Small Rehearsals and Big Results
Sarnoff chaired Venice High's music department in 2023 and, under her direction, the program punched well above its resources. In February 2022, Venice High was the only LAUSD campus represented at the California All-State Honor Choir, a distinction the school's student newspaper, The Oarsman, noted came from a choir Sarnoff maintained through small lunchtime practice sessions. Her departure left an immediate gap: choir students had to self-direct their rehearsals for months until first-year music teacher Aaron Sim was hired in early 2024, with student leaders telling the paper that several decades-long musical traditions lapsed during the transition.
Sarnoff was also a visible presence on campus well before her final dispute with the district. In 2018, she served as the UTLA chapter chairwoman for Venice High, leading a campus vote in which 100 percent of participating teachers backed authorizing a strike, according to The Oarsman's coverage of the union's push that year. And in 2015, she publicly raised concerns about student well-being after LAPD officers made on-campus arrests during a sexual assault investigation that county prosecutors ultimately declined to charge for insufficient evidence, as reported at the time by LAist; Sarnoff argued then that while the arrests disrupted campus, she believed inappropriate behavior had in fact occurred.
For now, both sides are waiting on Judge Nellon, who has not indicated when she will rule on LAUSD's motion to dismiss. Her decision will determine whether Sarnoff's claims of ageism and retaliation proceed toward trial, or whether the district's allegations about her classroom conduct are enough to end the case before a jury ever hears it.
