The new Bill aims to prevent sexual abuse of teachers in California schools

From MATTE DRANGECalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

A beloved teacher arrested for attracting a minor. Coach convicted of sexual abuse. A school neighborhood struck a multi -million dollar sentence for jurors for failing to protect the students.

The constant drum strike of stories in recent years about the sexual abuse of a teacher in the K-12 school areas in California shows that the scope of the violation is much wider than it has been known so far. Yet the stories hint only at how often sexual behavior has become sexual harassment and cultivation in schools, with Best available data The US Department of Education suggests that 1 in 10 children are aimed at raising at some point in their education K-12.

A new bill, which is ready to accept the legislature in the coming days, will give local and civil servants more instruments to identify and combat the sexual abuse and training of students to better identify the most common signs of raising behavior. Senate Bill 848or “Safe Learning Law” is the author of Senator Sasha Renee Perez, Democrat from Alhambra, in response to an investigative report on Business Insider, The playground of predatorsS The history of 2023 documented decades of sexual disorders, including nearly two dozen different teachers, ranging from ridiculous remarks about students’ bodies during class to legal rape, in one school in California, Romed Hi, which is in the Perez region.

As the article has been published, at least five Civil cases have been brought by former Rose StudentsWhile the State Prosecutor’s Justice Bureau open a rare investigation In processing claims for a sexual violation of a teacher that continues.

“California lacks a comprehensive standardized approach to preventing abuses in K-12 schools,” Perez told her colleagues that they are pushing for their support. “Several cases with a high profile continue to emphasize the systemic failures and emphasize the urgent need for more strong preventive measures to protect children.”

In an interview with Calmatters, Perez said he could personally contact the story of Rosemead. When she was in high school, a male employee at about 20 years old, her senior was interested in her, asking her questions about sex and boys her age. Then one day, when she returned to the campus shortly after graduation, he stopped her to ask if she was 18 years old and if he could take her to dinner. Then, Perez said, she realized that he was raising her for sexual relations.

“I didn’t tell my parents or something, but I talked about it with my friends,” she recalls. “And I remember talking about it, even at 17. Then my friends started sharing their own stories.”

The law would impose an employee violation database

If it becomes a law, the Perez Bill would create a database for violation of employees that regional administrators must use to recruit future job candidates, require school staff to report and monitor “outrage” cases of employees, to require education and to the schools and to admit to the school They are implementing new written policies. It will also apply more stringent employment check requirements for non-relevant, such as coaches, porters and bus drivers, to update the legal definition of “rearing” to include electronic communications and expanding the reporter requirements of all employees of all employees.

Much of the changes in policy in the bill are derived from January report Made by state -funded team to support fiscal crisis and management. The report examined the financial impact of a wave of lawsuits, it was made possible through a remarkable law for 2019, which temporarily declined the prescription for victims of childhood sexual abuse to file civil claims against school districts in order not to defend them. Many of the sentences and settlements of the jurors were in tens of millions of dollars, with some higher.

AS CalMatters previously reportedInsurance premiums jumped for the school districts, pushing some on the edge of financial bankruptcy. Estimates for the total value of claims across the country are about $ 3 billion, with many cases continuing.

Perez said this gloomy reality plays a key role in her decision to draw up a bill. “There are now dollars and cents appointed to these cases,” she said. “This is really open to this conversation about what we can do to prevent this abuse better.”

Billy Jo Grant, a professor at Cal Poly Pomona and a leading researcher in the sexual violations of teachers, said most of the cases of cultivation in schools are not reported. In many cases, the student is ashamed or feels complicit in the behavior, Grant said, while employees routinely fail to report suspicious behavior for fear of notes the reputation of a colleague.

Due to a lack of federal data, Grant follows teachers’ arrests using published news videos that show that over 3,000 teachers across the country have been arrested since 2017 after allegations of sexual violations involving students. Teachers’ California Commission in the meantime opened More than 1,300 investigations of sexual disorders of teachers for the same period of time – a figure that does not include cases that never relate to the state by the employees of the school area.

Grant, who often serves as an expert witness in the cases of criminal sexual abuse, describes Perez’s bill as a great start to create more complete data on the frequency of abuse. However, she stressed that the reading of school staff to determine whether the allegations of a violation are “justified” will lead to inadmissible reporting.

“I think what is abandoned is all times when they just don’t investigate, look at a complaint of nominal value and ask the teacher if he will resign. And that’s the end of history,” Grant said. “The problem is that there is no accountability for school administrators. Our system relies on them to do in -depth investigations.”

The law would impose an employee violation database

An essential element of Perez’s bill deals with the “pass the garbage”, a well -documented process in which teachers accused of sexual disorder, quietly resign, just to rented elsewhere and to be offended again. A study funded by the US Department of Justice shows that a teacher will be on average Go through three different school areas before they are stopped. Many of these teachers can be diverted by confidential separation agreements in which school staff agree not to disclose allegations of a violation of future employers in exchange for the resignation of the teacher.

This was what happened earlier this year with David Pitts, a former choir teacher Romed, who was released on administrative leave at a nearby school after he was named in Business Insider reporting. A A school investigation of Pitts behavior It almost led to an administrative hearing at the state level – the last step that most cases never reach because the teacher resigned quietly – before Pitts was arranged. Under its conditions Settlement agreementPitts will remain on the payroll until 2026. The district officers have agreed that if they receive a reference check from a potential employer, they will only respond by “providing employee and tasks work dates and will indicate that the employee has retired from the area”. Both Pitts and Human Resources Head declined to comment.

Perez invited Cindy Lam, Rosneda, who said she had been raised by Pitts when she was his accompanying piano in 2001 to testify in Sacramento in support of her bill.

“By the time he initiated sex with me, I was a screed in his hands. And by the time I realized I had been maintained, I was completely isolated and psychologically destroyed,” Lam said. “Law like SB 848 would have been adequately trained to be upheld. I would understand that these interactions are inappropriate and reported them.”

The opposition of the bill, which has bilateral support, is focused on proper concerns of the process raised by the unions of employees who are historically opposed to such attempts to strengthen the garbage laws in California. The California Association of Teachers – the largest union of teachers in the country that opposed such legislation In 2012 again In 2018– In particular, it does not oppose the bill. The California Federation of the Association of Teachers and Civil Servants in California, which together are both teachers and uncovered teachers, who will be included in the disciplinary database that Perez’s bill will have recently been opposed. Both unions cited concerns about the proper process as a major cause.

“We have to guarantee a policy that captures people who are unfit to work in education, while making sure that innocent and unfairly charged employees have fair access to justice,” said the legislative director of the California Federation of Teachers Tristan Braun. “We are committed to working with the Senator to make it a reality.”

Many other countries are already relying on such hiring databases that regulators have cited as key tools to keep students safe. California is one of only 16 states that lack a complete omission of the garbage law, A report of 2022 Posted by the Ministry of Education.

Back to the Rosemead Community, Many welcomed Perez’s bill as a necessary change in a community in which the boundaries between teachers and students are often blurred. Christie Row, a rose -like alum, graduated before Lam, testifies to support Perez’s bill.

Rowe said she had sexual relations with Paul Arevalo, a business teacher known on the campus, that she invited cheerleaders to sit on his lap between hours. Not long after Rowe met with him, Arevalo was investigated by the sheriff department of Los Angeles County for being claimed Disciplinary documents showS Arevalo continued to marry a former student and after transferring to a nearby school in the district was put on leave in 2017 when administrators found that he was Sexually harassed another studentRecords show. Avalo declined to comment.

“An urgent legal reform is urgently needed to center the votes of potential victims, to impose specialized education for educational staff and to ensure that future harm is avoided,” Rowe told lawmakers. “The resolution of these gaps is not only a matter of justice, but it is a moral imperative to protect children, to master the survivors and to create a society in which such abuse is not tolerated or hid.”

Matt Drang is a freelance investigation reporter in the area of ​​San Francisco Bay and a graduate of Rosemead High School. It can be reached mattdrange@gmail.comS

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.