Amid acclaimed teacher’s firing, LAUSD faces test over how it handles misconduct allegations
The firing of nationally recognized teacher Rafe Esquith comes as the school district is trying to improve the way it deals with allegations against teachers.
The move came after a misconduct investigation that included allegations Esquith made an improper joke to students and inappropriately touched minors. The longtime educator at Hobart Avenue Elementary School, who has received national acclaim for his teaching and his bestselling books, strongly denied any wrongdoing.
Over the past decade, there have been a series of high-profile cases involving Los Angeles educators accused of misconduct with children — and questions about whether the district has handled those allegations properly.
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How did the scandal at Miramonte Elementary School play into this?
In January 2012, Miramonte third-grade teacher Mark Berndt was arrested on suspicion of lewd acts with dozens of children. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. The district paid out record settlements — nearly $170 million — to the children and families who accused Berndt.
Shortly after the arrest, then-Supt. John Deasy instituted changes in the handling of misconduct allegations. He removed the staff at Miramonte for the remainder of the school year and launched a comprehensive review of employee files. That survey uncovered a small number of employees who, like Berndt, had escaped close scrutiny despite warning signs or earlier allegations of abuse.
Meanwhile, teachers complained that the district had become overzealous, or worse. Some administrators, they said, were using any allegation to get rid of instructors they disliked. Minor infractions, they said, suddenly became grounds for dismissal, and unproved allegations were enough to keep a teacher from ever returning to work.
How has Miramonte changed how the LAUSD handles such cases?
After Berndt’s arrest, the number of employees pulled from classrooms soared; more than a third of the allegations involved sexual abuse or harassment.
On the day of Berndt’s arrest, 161 teachers and other staff had been removed. By June 2012, that number was 284. Nearly a year later, it was 322.
L.A. Unified had long relied on principals to conduct internal inquiries, but officials concluded that those administrators frequently lacked the time and expertise.
As a result, the district last year assembled an 11-member Student Safety Investigation Team, at a cost of $1.8 million annually.
The team has opened 219 investigations, including Esquith’s case, and completed 180, according to the district. Of those, 30 resulted in dismissal proceedings, 34 emplyees returned to work without discipline and five resigned; the unit didn’t track the resolutions of many of the cases.
What happened with the Esquith case?
Acting on the recommendation of senior administrators, the school board voted unanimously behind closed doors Tuesday to begin termination proceedings against Esquith, according to sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the matter.
Esquith, 61, was removed from the classroom in April after another educator complained about a joke he made to students relating to nudity. The complaint prompted an investigation, which quickly grew to include other allegations of misconduct.
In a letter to Esquith’s attorneys in August, district officials said they were investigating claims that he inappropriately touched minors before and during his more than 30-year teaching career. The district also said the inquiry “revealed multiple inappropriate photographs and videos of a sexual nature.”
Other allegations involved his handling of a nonprofit.
What do his attorneys say?
Esquith’s attorney, Mark Geragos, said in an email that he thought any action against his client was a preemptive move to a class-action lawsuit he intends to file this week “on behalf of thousands of teachers who all attest to the pattern and practice of the District to gin up false complaints to divest teachers of their benefits as they near retirement age.”
Geragos, however, did not address questions about the board’s action against Esquith.
Earlier this year, the famed educator’s suspension outraged supporters across the country, who demanded he be returned to the classroom. His lawyers accused the district of trying to smear the teacher.
Esquith’s attorneys filed a lawsuit seeking his reinstatement. In court papers, they alleged that the investigation was launched because Esquith had quipped that if he could not raise enough money for an annual Shakespeare play, students would have to perform their parts naked, like the king in Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
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