A California school district failed to properly investigate more than 100 allegations of sexual misconduct perpetrated against students by school employees over nearly a decade, investigators determined last month.
The disturbing findings are the latest development in what lawyer John Manly, who represents victims of sex abuse and assault, calls “an epidemic of sexual abuse in California by teachers, coaches and other school employees.”
California’s attorney general’s office began investigating El Monte Union High School District in late 2023 after Business Insider published “The Predators’ Playground,” a harrowing article documenting decades of educator sexual abuse at El Monte’s Rosemead High School.
The subsequent 18-month investigation, which concluded in March, determined El Monte “failed to conduct legally compliant investigations” into more than 100 cases of sexual misconduct allegations dating back to 2018.
The state also discovered at least five cases in which a staff member continued to abuse and harass students after another staffer failed to report either the perpetrator’s misconduct or allegations against the perpetrator.
School employees in California must legally report allegations, suspicions or accounts of child sexual abuse to law enforcement within 36 hours. Failure to do so can result in up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Yet, according to Manly, El Monte employees aren’t the only ones violating California’s mandatory reporting laws.
“In the vast majority of cases, the mandatory reporting statute is ignored and schools investigate [sexual misconduct allegations] themselves,” the attorney told investigative journalist Catherine Herridge in February.
“The problem when institutions or people investigate themselves, in my experience, is they rarely find themselves guilty.”
At a press conference on the El Monte investigation’s conclusion, California Attorney General Rob Bonta admitted he expects to confront similar cases in the future.
“I don’t think this will be the last case of this type, unfortunately,” he told reporters.
California school districts have lost more than $3 billion in sexual abuse cases since 2020, when the state extended its statute of limitations on crimes of child sexual abuse.
But Bonta also believes his office’s reforms can rehabilitate districts like El Monte.
“We think we’ve arrived at a model that can help districts that have failed systemically, transform,” he said.
El Monte will undergo a lengthy period of state supervision following the investigation, including:
- State oversight of the district’s handling of sexual misconduct allegations.
- Creating a list of all substitute teachers “found to have violated employee policy on appropriate boundaries with students.”
- Training parents and students to better recognize signs of grooming and abuse.
The reforms compliment a new California law, which Governor Gavin Newsom signed in October 2025, creating a non-public database of school staff accused of misconduct.
While these provisions might well reduce educator sexual abuse in El Monte, they won’t “transform” it, or any other compromised districts, because they don’t address the legislative, cultural and institutional problems which perpetuate child predation in schools.
Most glaringly, Bonta’s model doesn’t address the reality that it is often faster and cheaper for schools to “pass the trash,” or shuffle school employees accused of sexual misconduct to other schools or districts, than it is to fire them.
“In public education in most states, it’s next to impossible to fire a bad teacher.” Manly tells Herridge. “They actually pay them to go away, even if they’ve sexually abused children.”
These predators get passed along to an average of three schools, often ending up in a low-income areas with a disproportionate number of vulnerable students and fewer parents with means to protect their children.
Bonta’s plan, which addresses district-by-district wrongdoing, cannot fix the fact that California law does not require schools notify parents if their child says a school employee sexually assaulted them or if another student makes an allegation of sexual misconduct against their child’s teacher.
California parents must also file a public records request to obtain any data about reported allegations of or disciplinary actions for sexual misconduct.
Manly puts it in perspective:
Bonta’s plan certainly doesn’t address the role teachers’ unions play in negotiating confidentiality clauses and non-disclosure agreements preventing schools from alerting future employers about sexual misconduct allegations against a former employee.
These structural problems allow educator sexual abuse to continue unchecked. Legislators and school officials must tackle them for district-by-district reforms like Bonta’s to be most effective.
Unfortunately, the epidemic of sexual abuse by school employees is not just in California. It’s a national issue — and has been for decades.
Charol Shakeshaft, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and the foremost authority on educator sexual abuse, estimates nearly 1 in 5 children (17%) in America experience sexual misconduct by a school employee.
The same obstacles that afflict California — passing the trash, failure to enforce mandatory reporting laws, lack of transparency and consistent reporting and predators using teachers’ unions as shields — plague every other state in the nation, too, to varying degrees.
The question isn’t whether there are victims; it’s whether schools will document victims’ claims and, subsequently, whether victims can take their cases to court.
Educator sexual abuse is prevalent and frightening. The Daily Citizen is buckling down to get you the information you need to protect your children. Stay tuned.
Additional Articles and Resources
Passing the Trash: Here’s What Parents Need to Know About Educator Sexual Misconduct