Family of Drowned Girl to File Claim on Schools

The lawyer representing the family of a 13-year-old Del Cerro girl who drowned last month in a public swimming pool told the San Diego Unified School District on Friday that he will file a wrongful-death claim with the board, alleging inadequate supervision by Lewis Junior High School.

Alice Kwan Lee was found 3 feet under the Allied Gardens Swimming Pool surface by other students at the start of the fifth period of swimming instruction June 16. She lapsed into a coma and died two weeks later. Foul play is not suspected.

“If a lifeguard is doing his or her duty, nothing like this should have happened. If no one was there, that’s also negligent,” said the lawyer, David Strauss. “These are students at all levels of swimming ability, some with very little ability. They aren’t expected to care for themselves.”

Lawsuit Is Possible

Strauss said the school board requested that the administrative claim be filed before negotiating a settlement. If no agreement is reached, Strauss said, he will file suit in Superior Court, probably for more than $100,000.

The school board is self-insured for damages up to that amount, and further damages up to $1 million are insured with Industrial Indemnity Co., according to school board general counsel Christina Dyer.

In another development, the school board released a 16-page internal report about the incident after obtaining permission from Lee’s parents, Soon and Ling Lee. The San Diego Tribune and KCST-TV (Channel 39) had lobbied for the report’s disclosure.

In the report, four teachers say they were in and out of the pool area during the time between Lee’s class and the following class when she was found. No teacher was there the entire time.

Dyer said it was unclear if Lee left the pool after her class and returned shortly afterward unseen by instructors, or if she never left.

Dyer also said she did not know if pool supervision was required between class periods or if Lee was a good swimmer. Fred Bates, coordinator of physical education for the district, refused to say whether continuous supervision was required.

A physical education teacher on duty both periods, Pamela Allor, said in her account to school police officer Sylvia Bate that “I have seen Alice in the water enough to know she can take care of herself in the water.”

Several student accounts of where Lee was at the end of her class period contradict each other. One of the students quoted in the report said she saw Lee enter the deep end of the pool near the end of the period. Another student said, however, that she saw Lee in line waiting to enter the locker room at the end of the period.