Seven teachers have settled their sexual harassment lawsuit against a former principal and the Elizabeth School Board for $1.785 million, according to the Elizabeth’s School District.

The teachers, all women, alleged in the 2016 suit that Carlos Lucio, the principal of Dr. Antonia Pantoja School No. 27 from 2008 to 2015, kissed or attempted to kiss them, repeatedly sent them inappropriate and unwelcome text messages, gave unwelcome massages and pulled their hair.

When the teachers rebuffed Lucio’s advances, he retaliated by making unannounced visits to their classrooms, watching them through windows in their classroom doors “in an intimidating manner,” and placing them on improvement plans, according to the lawsuit.

“We are hopeful that this resolution will lead to a change in the harassment and anti-discrimination policies in Elizabeth so as to ensure that this type of thing does not happen to other women in the future,” said the teachers' lawyer Brian Schiller of the Schiller-McMahon Law firm.

In May, Gov. Phil Murphy signed the “Pass the trash" legislation, which requires schools to ask a teacher’s previous employers if they were under investigation for sexual misconduct at the time they resigned. The law passed after an investigation by NJ Advance Media.

However, that law was not applicable in California where Lucio went to work after resigning from the Elizabeth School District.

He taught Spanish at Sage Creek High School in Carlsbad during the 2016-2017 school year.

When reached by NJ Advance Media, administrators at Sage Creek said Lucio was hired on a contract basis and would not be rehired, but they wouldn’t say if they were aware of the allegations against him.

After he left Sage Creek, Lucio was hired by Horizon Prep, a K-12 Christian school in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Lucio was hired to teach Spanish in the school’s high school program for the 2017-2018 school year. At the start of the school year, however, parents and students found out Lucio’s history in Elizabeth through Internet searches.

When contacted about Lucio’s employment, a spokesperson for Horizon Prep would only say that Lucio is not currently employed there.

The school would not answer questions about what information they were or were not provided about Lucio’s history. The school also would not confirm that Lucio was employed there or say why or how he left the district.

California is currently in the process of trying to get a similar “pass the trash” law passed.

In 2015, after one of the teachers reported the harassment to the administration, Elizabeth School Board launched an investigation.

However, even during the investigation teachers reported mistreatment. When they talked to investigators, school board personnel announced the teachers' names on loud speaker at the school and took photos of them walking in with investigators, the lawsuit said.

Following the investigation, Lucio signed a “Last Chance Agreement” document, which was obtained by NJ Advance Media, in which he agreed to participate in sensitivity training and to not make “sexually inappropriate or gender-based comments similar to those complained of while at School 27.”

He also agreed in the document that if the investigation substantiated the claims about his conduct, he would resign.

In June 2016, Lucio resigned from the district and received $8,202 for unused vacation time. The school district referred questions about Lucio’s resignation to Lucio.

The settlement, approved Dec. 28, calls for the distribution of $1.785 million to be paid by the district’s insurance carrier, which means no tax dollars would be paid in the settlement, according to, Perry L. Lattiboudere, an attorney who represented the district.