Feds Slam San Diego Unified’s Handling of Sexual Misconduct

The U.S. Department of Education recently slammed San Diego Unified’s approach to handling student complaints of sexual harassment. It’s the highest-profile example yet of the district being taken to task for its failure to properly deal with sexual misconduct on its campuses. It also backs up years of reporting by Voice of San Diego on sexual misconduct at the district.

The Office for Civil Rights reviewed 253 reports and complaints of sexual harassment and assault that occurred over three consecutive school years, according to the investigation’s findings. It found the district failed “more often than not,” to fulfill its obligations under federal sex-based discrimination law.

The resolution agreement between San Diego Unified and the Department of Education now requires the district to implement a suite of changes to the way it handles such cases to better comply with federal laws. 

What the Investigation Found

The Office for Civil Rights found the district’s handling of sexual harassment and assault complaints failed on numerous fronts. “These failures led to serial perpetration of harassment with insufficient district response, leaving district students vulnerable to the sex discrimination in school,” officials wrote. 

The report includes dozens of examples of the 253 cases reviewed to support each of its findings. The majority of the complaints involved student-on-student misconduct, while 14 involved employee-on-student sexual misconduct. 

Failure to “equitably” respond to allegations: Investigators found the district’s response to allegations of sexual harassment and assault did not meet expectations set by federal laws in a myriad of ways. Firstly, the district often failed to even evaluate whether reports of sexual harassment violated federal Title IX laws, which prohibit sex-based discrimination in schools. School districts are required to have both a Title IX office and a coordinator to oversee and manage complaints that arise. 

They also found the district did not take steps to prevent abuse from continuing or recurring, like not properly responding to escalating abusive behaviors, failed to remedy the impact of confirmed instances of sexual harassment and failed to provide the outcomes of investigations to all involved parties. 

Failure to coordinate with sex-based discrimination office: There are multiple ways students can report sexual misconduct within San Diego Unified, like approaching the district’s Quality Assurance Office, school officials or district police. Investigators found those entities often did not coordinate with each other or the district’s Title IX office, as federal law requires.

In instances of alleged sexual misconduct involving employees, the entities went directly to human resources and did not consult with the Title IX office at all. In some cases, administrators ignored the recommendations of the district’s Title IX coordinator, “often resulting in inequitable district responses to sexual harassment complaints.”

Failure to follow district approved complaint procedures: Investigators found that though the district had a board-approved uniform complaint procedure that met Title IX standards for handling sexual assault and harassment complaints, administrators almost never used it. During the years examined, San Diego Unified resolved all but three complaints through the uniform complaint procedure. The other 98.8 percent of complaints were resolved through an informal process not approved by the board that did not meet Title IX standards. That informal procedure did not “ensure an adequate, reliable, and impartial investigation of complaints,” the report reads.

Lack of training: Part of San Diego Unified’s Title IX problems likely stemmed from a lack of training. Investigators found that aside from the Title IX coordinator, every employee interviewed reported that the district had not trained them on what was expected of them under Title IX laws. That included employees who were sometimes tasked with performing Title IX investigations, like district police officers. This resulted in confusion among high-level staff like area superintendents about when they needed to report complaints to the Title IX office and instances when staff did not respond to outreach from the office.

Inadequate recordkeeping: Investigators found that the files the district turned over for all 253 complaints were incomplete. Many of the files referenced documents not provided to the Office of Civil Rights like police reports, witness statements, disciplinary consequences and interview notes. Through interviews, investigators found the district had no standard practice for information sharing or a centralized repository for files related to sexual misconduct. 

This meant things frequently fell through the cracks. Sometimes all parties weren’t notified of the outcome of investigations and in some instances, the lack of information about past conduct prevented the district from being able to “more effectively address current behavior so as to prevent the recurrence of sexually harassing conduct.” 

Potential failure to provide students a “free appropriate education”: The agency also found the district may have denied students’ constitutional right to a “free appropriate education,” by not adequately accounting for the needs of students with disabilities when responding to sexual harassment complaints. The agency wrote that the district may have run afoul of this requirement by failing to evaluate whether students accused of sexual harassment needed special education services and failing to address changes in the needs of students with disability caused by having experienced sexual harassment. 

What Started the Investigation? 

It’s unclear what prompted the investigation and the Department of Education did not respond to questions about its origin. The investigation, however, takes up multiple themes first raised by Voice, starting in 2017. At that time, Voice reporter Ashly McGlone first reported on a La Jolla High teacher, named Martin Teachworth, who students complained about so much over a 10-year period that he developed the nickname “Touchworth.” 

Even as complaints against Teachworth piled up, he stayed in the classroom. McGlone made multiple requests to San Diego Unified to get any complaint records against Teachworth, but the district maintained time after time that it had no records. That is, until district officials claim they discovered those records in a storage shed in 2019. 

As editor Sara Libby wrote at the time: 

The documents reveal a wide chasm between the story the district stuck to for years, and the truth: Not only did it have documents in its possession, those documents show that although district officials considered Teachworth’s actions criminal in at least one instance and believed he engaged in a pattern of troubling behavior, they responded to most incidents by giving him a warning – or by doing nothing at all.

Voice’s investigation ultimately dug into misconduct in many districts — with the use of public records — and was also taken up at various times by reporters Kayla Jimenez, Will Huntsberry and Jakob McWhinney. The investigation found serious incidents of misconduct were brushed under the rug or ignored for years. In some cases, teachers would hop from district to district after committing misconduct — a phenomenon advocates call “passing the trash.” (You can also listen to a podcast episode we did about it here.) 

The findings of the department’s investigation were likely uncomfortable for one Department of Education employee: Deputy Secretary Cindy Marten. Marten served as San Diego Unified’s superintendent during the years reviewed before being elevated to her current position. In fact, some of the issues came to the fore during Marten’s nomination process, with advocates expressing worry that she would carry what they viewed as a failure to properly handle allegations of sexual misconduct to her new position.  

What’s Next?

The district will now have to move forward with the Office of Civil Rights looking over its shoulder for an unspecified amount of time. 

San Diego Unified officials had to agree to correct their behavior in myriad ways. The Office of Civil Rights will monitor the district’s compliance until officials believe the district is fully in compliance with federal regulations. 

While San Diego Unified remains under monitoring, district officials will be required to report “detailed information” about new complaints of sexual harassment to the Office of Civil Rights. 

Each school district is required to have what’s called a Title IX coordinator. The district will be required to notify all employees that all allegations of sexual harassment that involve students must be routed through the district’s designated Title IX coordinator. 

The district also agreed to provide more training to staff and students, updates its policies and create a central repository for all sexual harassment complaints. 

How San Diego Unified Responded

In a lengthy statement, San Diego Unified spokesperson Maureen Magee emphasized the district’s commitment to improving its Title IX compliance. She also stressed that the district had changed many of its practices even before entering into the recent resolution agreement.

“The findings released by OCR are related to a review period that spanned the school years from 2017-18 to 2019-20, which do not reflect the District’s current policies and practices,” Magee wrote. 

Some of the changes implemented since that period include expanding its Title IX office, integrating related offices into a centralized unit, creating partnerships with the San Diego Police Department and the District Attorney’s office and holding an October 2020 campaign to increase staff and student knowledge of the procedures around sexual harassment reporting. 

“The district holds itself to the highest standards to ensure that students are never harmed, and has a responsibility to acknowledge when harm does occur to maintain transparency and accountability,” Magee wrote.