Voice of San Diego’s education reporter Jakob McWhinney has been on fire lately.
I’m going to catch you up on two education stories you need to read to start your week. Grab some cafecito and let’s jump in.
‘I Can’t Wait Until You’re 18’
First, the heavy. Voice has spent years investigating sexual misconduct by teachers. We’ve documented cases all over the county. We’ve obtained and fought for records to bring many of these stories to light.
And we’ve revealed time and time again that school districts often quietly reprimand teachers or allow teachers to leave — sometimes under conditions that keep future employers in the dark about their misconduct.
The story: Sexual harassment complaints against a middle school math teacher, Bruno Schonian, at Roosevelt Middle piled up from students and faculty members for years. The allegations ranged from telling girls they had “nice boobs” to touching one’s butt. Teachers at the school also complained about his behavior, but that wasn’t enough to fire him.
Instead, San Diego Unified allowed him to quietly retire. And his teaching credentials were still valid. It wasn’t until prosecutors stepped in that the state’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing pulled his credentials.
A complaint surfaced in 2019 that he tried to get a student to meet with him outside of school. He allegedly told the eighth grader. “I can’t wait until you’re 18.” Schonian pleaded guilty to willfully causing mental suffering to a child. Despite the guilty plea, he insists he is innocent.
You can read the full story here.
Behind Voice
McWhinney obtained documents that Business Insider shared as part of a nationwide investigation into teacher misconduct. I asked McWhinney why he felt it was important to tell this story and what stood out the most to him about how schools deal with teacher sexual misconduct. Here’s what he said:
“Voice has long written authoritatively about sexual misconduct in local schools, but despite all that we’ve revealed this distressing issue hasn’t gone away. To me, that makes continuing to beat the drum about the fact that far too often teachers escape accountability for misconduct all the more important.
Schonian’s story encapsulates much of what’s so enraging about these cases. Complaints piled up, still San Diego Unified chose not to act decisively to keep him away from children. When they finally did part ways, it was through a retirement agreement that explicitly kept his actions out of view from potential future employers.
The most shocking revelation, however, was the fact that after Roosevelt’s administrators received complaints of inappropriate behavior from multiple eighth-grade girls in his class, they chose not to get him out of the classroom. Instead, they simply reassigned him to work with even younger children because they ‘did not want him working with more mature (eighth) grade girls.’ To me, that is absolutely damning.”
New from Voice: The Progress Report
This week, we launched a new monthly column by McWhinney on innovations in education. We’re calling it The Progress Report. The idea is to feature schools and districts that are tackling some of the biggest challenges in education.
It’s going to publish on the last Thursday of every month. And you can find the new posts on this page. Here’s a bit on the first column.
How one City Heights school is (still) doing the nearly impossible: Four years ago, we used a metric we created to find a school that was excelling above what would be expected because of the area’s poverty level. As we’ve reported, schools in wealthier areas almost always have better test scores than schools in poorer communities. But there are schools bucking that trend.
That’s where Edison Elementary comes in. The school has continued to improve.
The Progress Report features interviews with teachers about what’s working and why they believe the school is doing the nearly impossible. Read the Progress Report here.
Save for later: If you want to dig into our Income vs. Test Score Metric, we’ve got a post on why it matters and how we use it. Read that here. If you want to know where your child’s school falls, download our 2024 A Parent’s Guide to San Diego Schools or search your school here.
More Chisme to Start Your Week
- The Primary Election is on Tuesday. On the latest episode of the VOSD Podcasts, our hosts explain what races are on your ballot, and why this election isn’t as boring as it seems. Listen to the full episode here.
- Voice intern Juan Estrada reported on a new study that shows evictions are climbing and hitting San Diego’s poor neighborhoods hardest. Read the story here.
- Some of you are really digging McWhinney’s Song of the Week selection. I have started uploading all his picks in our arts section. Catch up here.
- The Office of the City Auditor released a report that shows San Diego’s got bigger problems than police overtime spending. The report found that officers are working such long shifts that they are endangering themselves and the public, our Will Huntsberry writes. Read more about the findings here.
- Tigist Layne writes that Palomar Health is making a big management move that could change how much access community members have to information about the public district’s decisions. Read her North County Report here.
- Deborah Brennan reports that state Sen. Steve Padilla and other lawmakers want to get ahead of AI. Read about what they are doing in the Sacramento Report.
Thank you for reading Cup of Chisme. If you have any feedback, questions or ideas for this newsletter, you can contact me at andrea.lopez@voiceofsandiego.org.
