The school year has barely started, but already a handful of schools have been plagued with a serious health concern – potential mold exposure. In Poway, mold was reported in dozens classrooms, leading the district to move students to alternate campuses. And on Monday, we broke the news that Monarch School, the only school in America dedicated to teaching kids experiencing homelessness, vacated its Barrio Logan campus after concerns of possible mold arose.
NBC 7 followed up on the news and received an anonymous tip that mold problems first began to surface at the campus last year.
Officials at the San Diego County Office of Education, which runs the school, and the nonprofit Monarch School Project, which owns the facilities and leases them to the county office, have remained relatively mum when it comes to details about the mold concerns. In statements, the representatives for the organizations wrote only that they’d relocated students “out of an abundance of caution.”
But for the next week, at least, Monarch students will be split between nearby Perkins K-8 and a county office facility in National City. The school’s unorthodox dynamic – wherein the County Office of Education manages the educational program and a separate nonprofit owns the facilities – means the county office won’t actually conduct the environmental testing needed to determine if there’s really something to worry about at the school.
In a statement, Rebecca Sutton, the nonprofit’s grants manager, wrote that they would be conducting air quality testing and would “continue to follow the guidance of qualified environmental experts.”
In an interview with NBC 7, the Monarch School Project’s President and CEO, Tamara Craver, explained away the potential mold as likely stemming from the significant heat and humidity in recent weeks. But the network also reported that this wasn’t the first time people had complained about possible mold exposure at the school.
An anonymous source emailed NBC 7, claiming that “classrooms have smelled bad and had excessive moisture, dehumidifiers filled up quickly, papers left in rooms became soaked and air-conditioning units leaked. The source also said people frequently became sick and that air quality testing last year found aspergillus, a form of mold, in one of the offices,” the outlet wrote.
Carver demurred when reporters asked about the previous complaints.
“Unfortunately, I can’t speak to that. I wasn’t here a year ago,” she told NBC 7.
If the school’s leadership did ignore reports of mold, that’s a big deal. Monarch has long been lauded for the service it provides to students experiencing homelessness – as it should be. It’s an incredibly difficult task to support students struggling with such severe instability. But that also places on them an incredible responsibility to care for the most marginalized young people in our society.
And while aspergillus – the mold NBC 7’s leaker claimed was detected last year – is generally harmless to people with healthy immune systems, it can cause illness, fungal masses or infections in people who are immunocompromised or have lung diseases. In the most serious cases, prolonged exposure to the mold can kill. It doesn’t seem like a reach to think that students experiencing the travails of homelessness may be at special risk for those more serious complications.
In any case, it seems like there’s a lot more to find out – in the mangled words of former Senator Howard Baker – what did Monarch leadership know, and when did they know it.
Effort to Reform Sex Abuse Lawsuit Law Takes Step Forward
For years, lawmakers and school administrators have been trying to figure out what to do about AB 218.
The law was passed in 2019, during the #MeToo movement. It widened the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse and allowed victims to seek up to three times the damages they would have been entitled to otherwise were they able to prove an institution attempted to conceal the abuse.
It gave victims, many of whom don’t report their abuse until decades after they experienced it, powerful new tools with which to seek accountability from perpetrators and the institutions that employed them.
But in the view of some officials, the law may have worked too well.
After its passage, survivors filed a veritable flood of new sexual abuse lawsuits, the financial impact of which threatened to bury school districts across the state. Los Angeles Unified School District, for example, has borrowed $750 million to settle nearly 400 lawsuits enabled by the new law. As of last year, San Diego Unified had been hit with more than 30 lawsuits and paid out about $6.5 million in settlements.
While the numbers are eye-popping, the frequency of sexual abuse in schools shouldn’t be a surprise to Voice of San Diego readers. For years, we’ve covered the ins and outs of such cases at districts across the region and have documented why so often perpetrators have escaped nearly scot-free.
The fiscal hit wasn’t reserved for school districts. Local governments have also been hit with lawsuits. More than 300 lawsuits from victims who allege they were sexually abused at San Diego County-run foster facilities and juvenile care centers. Some government officials have said it’s unsustainable.
An EdSource op-ed from a board member at the Carpinteria School District put it like this: “Districts like mine are beginning to navigate real choices that impact teachers and students today: not hiring additional staff, increasing class sizes, forgoing raises for teachers in line with inflation and a rising cost of living, and deferring desperately needed repairs — not only because of declining enrollment or the evaporation of Covid-19 funds, but because of massive legal settlements tied to decades-old claims. These costs are being pulled directly from classroom budgets, not state reserves or insurance payouts. In some cases, the claims predate any known documentation, witnesses, or even the existence of current staff or board members.”
Regardless of the burden, the basic fact remains that schools wouldn’t be faced with these phenomenal payouts had they not chosen inaction, or worse yet concealment of abuses, in decades prior.
Legislators, meanwhile, have struggled to figure out how to reform the law, while honoring its intent to give victims a greater opportunity to seek justice. One proposed solution emerged last week with SB 577.
As EdSource wrote, if enacted, the law “will raise the legal standard required for people who are 40 years or older to sue for sexual assaults that occurred before Jan. 1, 2024. It also will require schools and other agencies to have sexual assault prevention plans and codes of conduct.”
Some people think the reform doesn’t go far enough. That’s led to opposition from organizations like statewide advocacy group the California School Board Association and a slew of other organizations representing school districts. One of the major points of contention is that it doesn’t include a major ask – capping awards for victims of child sexual abuse. The bill’s author, State Senator John Laird called that proposal “a bridge too far.”
Even given the opposition, the bill has moved through the state legislature. All eyes are now on Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has 30 days to sign the law before it’s effectively vetoed.