Redlands school board candidates condemn sex abuse scandals, vow changes

Candidates vying for two seats on the Redlands Unified School District’s Board of Trustees are demanding policy changes and more transparency amid a sex abuse scandal that prompted the district to recently settle a trio of lawsuits for $15.7 million.

Kristin Washington, appearing with three other contenders at a recent candidates forum, called the events leading up to the recent settlement “totally unacceptable.”

“This should not have been allowed to happen,” Washington said during the Sept. 21 forum at the Redlands Senior Center, hosted by the nonprofit Common Vision Coalition of Redlands. “I think that we, as adults, we have a responsibility to watch out for the children that are in our charge.”

She said administrators need to take swift action when it comes to allegations or suspicions of sexual abuse.

“We need to get law enforcement involved, and I don’t understand why that didn’t happen,” said Washington, who describes herself as a process improvement manager. “There’s a cultural change that needs to happen in the schools. If people knew about it and they didn’t do anything, then that means there’s a culture that thinks that this is OK.”

Washington is among three candidates vying for the open seat in Trustee Area 2 in the Nov. 6 school board election. Also running are Michele Rendler and Ricardo Ruiz. In the race for Trustee Area 1, incumbent Patty S. Holohan faces a single challenger, parent and teacher Libbern G. Cook. Holohan did not participate in the community forum.

Changes needed

All of the candidates discussed what actions they would take, if elected, in response to the scandal that has rocked the school district and resulted in $22 million in payouts over the past five years to settle lawsuits filed by former students alleging they were sexually abused by teachers.

“That really ticks me off that we have dirtbags like that in our schools, and there ought to be changes,” Ruiz said. “However, something bad always has to happen for those changes to happen, and it shouldn’t be like that.

“I will make it my fervent duty to institute a policy that protects our students, and if it means stepping on people’s toes, so be it. But those students need to be protected.”

Rendler said the district, in response to the sex abuse crisis, needs to focus on recruiting quality teachers and be more involved in the hiring process.

“If elected to the board, I will make sure that we have procedures and policies in place to ensure that we are hiring the best teachers that we can,” said Rendler, a community volunteer.

Money could have been used elsewhere

In August, the school district agreed to settle three lawsuits involving eight plaintiffs — all former Redlands High School students — for $15.7 million, perhaps the largest legal settlement in the school district’s history.

Six of the plaintiffs are the victims, or claim to have been the victims, of former special-education teacher and golf coach Kevin Patrick Kirkland, one alleges to be the victim of former English teacher Brian Townsley, and another alleges she was molested by former theater technical director Daniel Bachman.

Rendler said the millions being paid out to settle the lawsuits could have been used for the classrooms and/or to support student extracurricular activities.

“We lost a lot of money because of this, so if elected to the board, I would ensure that that will never happen again,” she said during the candidates forum.

Cook, who is trying to oust incumbent Holohan, said during the candidates forum it is “inexcusable what happened,” and that there needs to be more transparency and accountability at the administrative level.

Having children who attended school in the district during the highly publicized sex abuse cases, Cook said he was not impressed in the way the district handled the situation.

“When this was going on I felt there wasn’t transparency with me, as a parent,” Cook said. “Sometimes they don’t want to hear what we have to say. We need to make sure our priorities are protecting our children. We need to be watchful, mindful, and protect our kids.”

Attorneys claim cover-up

The latest legal settlement in Redlands Unified follows an investigation by the Southern California News Group detailing the review of more than 2,000 pages of internal documents, reports and depositions along with 11 hours of recorded police interviews that attorneys say reveal a more than decade-long pattern of sex abuse cover-up by the district.

In the Kirkland case, top administrators at Redlands High School and the school district allowed the special-education teacher and golf coach to remain in his teaching position and prey on students despite multiple complaints from students and parents about his questionable conduct. Some of the complaints dated as far back as 2006 or 2007.

The school board has been relatively tight-lipped on the sex abuse scandal since 2013, when former Citrus Valley High School teacher Laura Whitehurst was convicted of having sex with three former students at two high schools. She bore the child of one of her victims, whose family received a $6 million settlement from the district in August 2016.

Whitehurst was sentenced to a year in jail and served only six months before she was released from custody.

Also in December 2013, the district agreed to pay $505,000 to settle a sexual abuse lawsuit filed by a 2009 Redlands East Valley High School graduate against the district and teacher Megan Kelly. Kelly, using the surname Cullen at the time, was accused of sexually abusing the student from January through May 2009, something both Kelly and the district denied.

Apology sought

Mario Saucedo, chairman of the Common Vision Coalition of Redlands and moderator of the candidates forum, addressed the school board on the issue during its Sept. 11 meeting, saying he was “sad and disheartened” by what he had been reading in the news media about the sex abuse scandal and litigation.

“I come here today to give voice on behalf of students, children, families and concerned community members impacted by the sexual abuse issues within the schools of this district,” Saucedo told the board. “You were elected by the voters within the school district and therefore accountable for the decisions made in the district.

“Why, as policymakers, have you not come out to make a public apology for what has happened to our students, children, families, and the community as a whole? Why?”

He said he was subsequently told by school board President Jim O’Neill that, due to the pending litigation, the board was precluded from commenting publicly on the matter.

Saucedo said he finds that unacceptable. “I do believe at some point they are where the buck should stop,” he said.

In August, the school district issued a news release detailing a raft of policy and procedure changes in response to the crisis, including the installation of a Raptor security system to screen campus visitors at all district schools. The district also has contracted with one of the nation’s leading child sexual abuse experts to train staff, and has reinstituted school resource officers at all its high schools.

Additionally, the school district is in the final stages of rolling out new employee-student boundary policies, district spokeswoman MaryRone Shell said in an email Tuesday.

“They will be reviewed by our legal counsel and members of the board who will consider them for adoption. When they are adopted, they will be clearly communicated to our staff, students, families and community,” Shell said in an email.

Source link