The Brief

A beloved teacher arrested for soliciting a minor. A coach convicted of sexual abuse. A school district hit with a multi-million-dollar jury verdict for failing to protect students.

The steady drumbeat of stories in recent years about educator sexual abuse in K-12 school districts across California shows the scope of misconduct is much wider than previously known. Yet the stories only hint at how common sexual harassment and grooming behavior has become in schools, with the best available data from the U.S. Education Department suggesting that 1 in 10 children is targeted for grooming at some point in their K-12 education.

A new bill, which is poised to pass the Legislature in the coming days, would give local and state officials more tools to identify and combat sexual abuse, and educate students to better identify the most common signs of grooming behavior. Senate Bill 848, or “Safe Learning Environments Act,” was authored by Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, a Democrat from Alhambra, in response to an investigative report in Business Insider, The Predators’ Playground. The 2023 story documented decades of sexual misconduct involving nearly two dozen different educators, ranging from lewd remarks about students' bodies during class to statutory rape, at a single California school, Rosemead High, which is in Pérez’s district.

Since the article was published, at least five civil lawsuits have been filed by former Rosemead students, while the state attorney general’s Bureau of Children’s Justice opened a rare investigation into the handling of educator sexual misconduct claims, which is ongoing.

“California lacks a comprehensive standardized approach to preventing abuse in K-12 schools,” Pérez told fellow lawmakers in urging their support. “Several high profile cases continue to highlight systemic failures and underscore an urgent need for stronger preventative measures to protect children.”

In an interview with CalMatters, Pérez said she could personally relate to the Rosemead story. When she was in high school, a male staffer some 20 years her senior took an interest in her, asking her questions about sex and boys her age. Then one day, when she returned to campus soon after graduating, he stopped her to ask if she’d turned 18 and if he could take her to dinner. That’s when, Pérez said, it dawned on her that he’d been grooming her for a sexual relationship.

State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez addresses fellow lawmakers on the Senate floor at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Aug. 21, 2025.

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Miguel Gutierrez Jr.

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CalMatters

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“I didn't tell my parents or anything, but I talked about it with my friends,” she recalled. “And I remember talking about it, even at 17. That's when my friends started sharing their own stories.”

Law would mandate a database of employee misconduct

If it becomes law, Pérez’s bill would create a database of employee misconduct that district administrators must use to background prospective job candidates, require school district officials to report and track “egregious” instances of employee misconduct, mandate training for both educators and students on how to combat and recognize the signs of grooming, and require school districts to implement new written policies defining professional boundaries. It would also apply stricter prior employment check requirements for non-teachers, such as coaches, janitors and bus drivers, update the legal definition of “grooming” to include electronic communications and extend mandated reporter requirements to all employees.

Much of the policy changes in the bill are drawn from a January report produced by the state-funded Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team. The report studied the financial impact of a wave of lawsuits made possible through a landmark 2019 law that temporarily dropped the statute of limitations for victims of childhood sexual abuse to file civil claims against school districts for failing to protect them. Many of the resulting jury verdicts and settlements have been in the tens of millions of dollars, with some much higher.

As CalMatters previously reported, insurance premiums have skyrocketed for school districts, pushing some to the brink of financial insolvency. Estimates for the total value of claims statewide are around $3 billion, with many cases ongoing.

Pérez said this grim reality played a key role in her decision to draft the bill. “There are now dollars and cents being assigned to these cases,” she said. “It's really opened up this conversation about what can we do to better prevent this abuse from happening.”

Billie-Jo Grant, a professor at Cal Poly Pomona and a leading researcher in educator sexual misconduct, said the majority of grooming cases in schools go unreported. In many cases, a student is ashamed or feels complicit in the behavior, Grant said, while employees routinely fail to report suspicious behavior for fear of tarnishing a colleague’s reputation.

Because of a lack of federal data, Grant has tracked teacher arrests using published news clips, which show that more than 3,000 educators nationwide have been arrested since 2017 following allegations of sexual misconduct involving students. California’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing, meanwhile, has opened more than 1,300 investigations of teacher sexual misconduct over the same time period – a figure that does not include cases which are never referred to the state by school district officials.

Grant, who frequently serves as an expert witness in criminal sexual abuse cases, described Pérez’s bill as a great start toward creating more complete data on the frequency of abuse. She stressed, however, that relying on school officials to determine whether misconduct allegations are “substantiated” will lead to underreporting.

“I think what’s left out is all of the times where they simply don’t do an investigation, look at a complaint at face value, and ask the teacher if they’d resign. And that’s the end of the story,” Grant said. “The problem is there is no accountability for school administrators. Our system relies on them doing thorough investigations.”

Law would mandate a database of employee misconduct

A primary element of Pérez’s bill addresses “pass the trash,” a well-documented process in which teachers accused of sexual misconduct quietly resign, only to be hired elsewhere and re-offend. Research funded by the U.S. Department of Justice shows that an educator will on average pass through three different school districts before they are ultimately stopped. Many of these teachers are able to be rehired because of confidential separation agreements, in which school officials agree to not disclose allegations of misconduct to would-be employers in exchange for the educator’s resignation.

That’s what happened earlier this year with David Pitts, a former Rosemead High choir teacher who was placed on administrative leave at a nearby school after he was named in Business Insider’s reporting. A school district investigation of Pitts’ behavior nearly led to an administrative hearing at the state level — a final step that most cases never reach because the teacher has quietly resigned — before Pitts settled. Under the terms of his settlement agreement, Pitts will remain on the payroll until 2026. District officials agreed that if they receive any reference check from a potential employer, they would respond only by “providing Employee's dates of employment and assignments, and indicating that Employee retired from the District." Both Pitts and the district’s head of human resources declined to comment.

Pérez invited Cindy Lam, a Rosemead alum who said she was groomed by Pitts when she served as his student piano accompanist in 2001, to testify in Sacramento in support of her bill.

“By the time he initiated sex with me, I was putty in his hands. And by the time I realized I had been groomed, I was completely isolated and psychologically destroyed,” Lam said. “A law like SB 848 would have adequately educated me about grooming behaviors. I would have known that these interactions were inappropriate and reported them.”

Opposition to the bill, which has bipartisan support, is focused on due process concerns raised by employee unions that have historically opposed similar attempts to strengthen pass the trash laws in California. The California Teachers Association — the state’s largest teacher’s union, which opposed similar legislation in 2012 and again in 2018, — notably does not oppose the bill. The California Federation of Teachers and California State Employees Association, however, which together represent both teachers and the non-credentialed educators who would be included in the disciplinary database that Pérez’s bill would create, recently opposed it. Both unions cited concerns over due process as the primary reason.

“We need to ensure a policy that captures individuals that are unfit to work in education while making sure innocent and unfairly charged employees have fair access to justice,” said California Federation of Teachers legislative director Tristan Brown. “We are committed to working with the senator to make that a reality.”

Numerous other states already rely on similar hiring databases, however, which regulators have cited as key tools in keeping students safe. California is one of just 16 states that lack a comprehensive pass the trash law, a 2022 report published by the Department of Education found.

Back in the Rosemead community, many have welcomed Pérez’s bill as a needed change in a community where boundaries between teachers and students have frequently been blurred. Kristy Rowe, a Rosemead alum who graduated before Lam, testified in support of Pérez’s bill as well.

Rowe said she had a sexual relationship with Paul Arevalo, a business teacher known on campus for inviting cheerleaders to sit on his lap in between classes. Not long after Rowe met him, Arevalo was investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for allegedly offering to buy another female student condoms and sending her sexually explicit messages during class, disciplinary documents show. Arevalo went on to marry a former student and, after transferring to a nearby school in the district, was placed on leave in 2017 when administrators found he’d sexually harassed another student, records show. Arevalo declined to comment.

“Comprehensive legal reform is urgently needed to center the voices of potential victims, to mandate specialized training for educational personnel, and to ensure that future harm is avoided,” Rowe told lawmakers. “Addressing these gaps is not only a matter of justice, it is a moral imperative to protect children, empower survivors, and create a society where such abuse is neither tolerated nor hidden.”

Matt Drange is a freelance investigative reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area and an alumnus of Rosemead High School. He can be reached at mattdrange@gmail.com.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

An estimated 26,000 children who entered the U.S. without parents or guardians are expected to be left without independent legal representation as soon as Monday, according to lawyers who help represent them.

For more than two decades, the U.S. has been required by law to protect children who cross the border alone, because of fears that they could be easily exploited, abused or trafficked. After children cross the border unaccompanied, they are typically transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). A network of nearly 100 legal groups helps provide children who arrive in ORR custody with legal services, funded by Congress.

But in November, ORR stopped paying for those legal services, after lawyers declined to provide the agency with confidential information it had requested about the children. The attorneys say that information is covered by attorney-client privilege.

"The government is withholding payment for work that has already been performed in order to extract confidential information about kids, information the government has no right to," Acacia Center for Justice, the nonprofit that manages the legal services contract with ORR, said in a statement on Thursday.

ORR did not renew the contract with the network of legal providers, which expired Friday.

Alexa Sendukas, an attorney at the Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project, one of the organizations that provides legal help to migrant children, said that come Monday, the children may have to represent themselves in court and that most who would have to do that would likely end up being deported.

"We know that without a lawyer, unaccompanied children win the right to stay in the United States less than 1% of the time," said Sendukas. "And they've come to the United States seeking safety and protection. And what this administration is asking us to do now is to turn our backs on them completely. And they will undoubtedly be sent to harmful, dangerous situations. And I worry some will be killed if they lose their lawyers."

A group of legal nonprofits filed a lawsuit last year asking a judge to order the government to pay them for what it is owed — some $65 million — and continue paying them for more services. After going more than eight months without pay from ORR, some legal service providers have had to reduce their staff.

"Due to the loss of funding for children's immigration work, ProBAR laid off more than 20% of its staff this week," Lauren Fisher Flores, the legal director of ProBAR, a project of the American Bar Association that provides legal services to children in ORR care, said in an emailed statement on July 31.

On July 29, Acacia received notice from the federal government that ORR was considering a new contract, potentially with different legal providers. But ORR did not share much more information.

"It is not clear who the new contractor will be. They have not answered the questions that we have put to them," said Bettina Rodriguez Schlegel of Acacia, in response to a question from NPR. "And so there remains a lot of uncertainty and a great deal of concern."

Neither ORR nor the White House responded to NPR's requests for comment about this story.

Almost 1,800 children were in ORR custody in June, according to agency data. ORR has a legal obligation based on a 2008 law to promptly match children with guardians, or "sponsors," in the U.S. who can take care of them. Those children were held in custody for an average of 194 days before being released to sponsors, which lawyers who represent the children say is unusually long and has been detrimental to the health and safety of the children.

For years, lawyers from the network have given presentations for children arriving in ORR care to inform them of their rights and screen them to determine which legal services they are eligible for. Children who are victims of trafficking or abuse, for example, are entitled to special protections. Some of the network's lawyers told NPR they will no longer be able to provide some of those services.

But some of the attorneys say they won't simply abandon the children, even though the contract has not been renewed and they have not been paid by ORR.

"We have an ethical responsibility. We can't just drop a case. If you have a hearing tomorrow, we can't just not show up because the government decided to stop paying us," said Mickey Donovan, the director of legal services at Immigrant Defenders Law Center. "So we'll be there in court on Monday, to introduce ourselves to kids and try to do what we can to prevent their deportation."

Copyright 2026 NPR

The Los Angeles Dodgers have acquired the biggest prize on the trade deadline market, getting two-time reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers on Saturday night.

Skubal got the news during the Tigers’ 8-6 win over the Athletics and was emotional after the game as he prepared to leave the team that drafted him in 2018 and developed him into a star to join the two-time defending World Series champions.

“I’m excited to be a Dodger,” he said. “I’m excited to get down there and meet all those guys and chase three championships in a row. That’s hard to do, so I’m so excited to a part of that. But it’s a lot of different emotions. Definitely kind of a roller coaster a little bit.”

Skubal is the latest star to join the high-priced roster for the Dodgers that already has big-name players like Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Mookie Betts. If everyone is healthy, he could be part of a rotation with Ohtani, reigning World Series MVP Yamamoto, fellow two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. The Dodgers lead the majors with a 3.36 ERA from their starting pitchers and now add Skubal to the mix.

The Dodgers are in first place in the NL West and were already the favorites to become the first team to three-peat since the New York Yankees from 1998-2000 before adding Skubal. They began the season with a $323.3 million opening-day payroll for their 40-man roster and a $163.7 million tax for a $487.1 million total. They will pay Skubal about $9.5 million for the remainder of the season.

ESPN first reported the deal and said the Tigers would receive three minor league prospects in right-handers River Ryan and Brady Smith and outfielder Zyhir Hope.

Skubal is eligible for free agency after the World Series. He has a $32 million salary, a record total in arbitration, after the team offered $19 million, and is expected to sign a massive contract in the offseason.

The 29-year-old lefty said in July that it was his preference to finish the season with the Tigers and to compete for a World Series championship, which has eluded the franchise since 1984. Skubal took the loss in the decisive Game 5 of the division series against Cleveland in 2024 and then got a no-decision in a 15-inning loss to Seattle in Game 5 of the division series last year.

He said it was “very tough” to leave the Tigers having fallen short of the goal of winning a title.

“Ever since that ’24 Game 5, the failure that I experienced on the mound, I’ve used that as fuel to try and bring a World Series to the city of Detroit. I truly did,” he said. “That whole offseason I’ve never been more motivated and then go in and we lose Game 5 again. That failure kind of sparks some more motivation, just to dig deeper and see how good you can truly be. The goal was always to win a World Series for the city, for the organization that took a chance on me. It’s tough. I love all those guys in there. They’re some of my best friends.”

Detroit planned to contend again this season, bolstering the Skubal-led rotation by giving two-time All-Star pitcher Framber Valdez a $115 million, three-year contract in free agency and retaining three-time All-Star infielder Gleyber Torres with a $22 million deal.

The Tigers, though, got off to a rough start and are currently 2 1/2 games out of the last wild-card spot in the American League.

“It’s crazy. Going into the season, this isn’t what I planned on doing,” Skubal said. “But circumstances change, situations change, and I’m very appreciative of everything the Tigers have done for me.”

They bounced back in June and most of July to get into playoff contention with Skubal leading a rotation and three All-Stars in the lineup: rookie infielder Kevin McGonigle, catcher Dillon Dingler and outfielder Riley Greene.

With a chance to possibly persuade management to keep Skubal by improving its playoff positioning, Detroit lost ground by dropping four of its last five games at home, including Skubal’s last start that was made even more memorable by a late-inning collapse.

The Tigers led Baltimore 7-0 after six innings Wednesday and lost 10-9 in 12 innings. Skubal started the game, recorded his 1,000th career strikeout and was cheered at every opportunity by a crowd of 34,406.

“I’ve watched this guy rise to the top of the sport,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “He’s carried us a lot. I’ll forever be grateful that our paths crossed and the things that he did for this organization and for a couple of playoff teams. His presence, his work ethic, his example, his dominance. There’s so much to go through, it’s hard to capture in one quote or kind of one setting. But I’m very grateful that I was able to manage him for the time that I did.”

Skubal is 7-5 this season with a 2.79 ERA and 116 strikeouts in 96 2/3 innings. He is 61-42 with a 3.04 ERA over seven seasons, all in Detroit. In two postseasons, Skubal is 2-1 with a 2.04 ERA in six starts.

Skubal had a minimally invasive surgery on May 6 to remove a loose body from his pitching elbow and returned to pitch on June 13.

“The way the surgery went is exactly how it was supposed to go,” he said in July.

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AP Sports Writer Larry Lage in Detroit contributed to this report

Yoko Ono is having her first solo retrospective in Southern California, Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, at The Broad in downtown Los Angeles.

As part of the survey of her career, a special tribute concert, Yoko Only, featuring artists inspired by Ono, including Yo La Tengo, Tune-Yards and other musicians spanning genres and generations is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 8.

If you only know Yoko Ono because of that whole Beatles thing ...

The 93-year-old Ono has been a major avant-garde art figure since the 1960s. In one of her most famous works, long considered a cornerstone of feminist art, Ono sat on stage as audience members cut away pieces of her clothing.

Her experimentation spills over into music

In the late 1960s, Ono formed a band of sorts with John Lennon, originally as a conceptual art piece for a show. The Plastic Ono Band featured a rotating cast of members including some jaw-dropping names: Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Keith Moon.

Plastic Ono Band

On Dec. 11, 1970, both Ono and Lennon released their respective debut solo albums — John Lennon/Plastic Ono Ban and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band.

Lennon's version — musically stripped down and lyrically raw — was lauded by critics at the time.

Ono's version — where vocal experimentation took center stage — was panned. Here's what music writer Marissa Lorusso said of the album for NPR in 2021.

In the decades since its release, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band has found new appreciation, particularly among musicians the likes of Kim Gordon and Yuka Honda.

'Yoko Only'

Honda, half of the 1990s New York duo Cibo Matto, is the tribute concert's guest curator.

"Everyone from Tune-Yards to Satomi Matsuzaki of Deerhoof to Sylvan Esso, Yo La Tengo, Rufus Wainwright — they all cite Yoko as a major influence on them as artists," said Ed Patuto, The Broad's director of audience engagement, who reached out to ask Honda to participate.

"Her music and her lyrics oftentimes have that poeticism. Yuka has done arrangements that really do this work justice," Patuto continued. "We're gonna introduce Angelenos to Yoko the musical composer."

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post

More than 260 city employees could be laid off and over 200 more vacant positions could be cut in departments ranging from fire and police to homeless services in order to close a $58 million budget gap the city faces next year, according to a budget proposal from Long Beach City Manager Tom Modica released on Thursday.

The $4 billion spending plan, which covers the 2026-27 fiscal year, includes some new spending, including a 12-person High Crime Focus Team and expanded real-time crime center in the Police Department, permanent funding for Fire Engine 17 near Stearns Park, money for replacing traffic signs and sprucing up medians, investments in the city’s police crime lab and a $6.5 million helicopter paid for using forfeited assets and a law enforcement grant.

But the cuts outsize the gains. Layoffs could claim 4% of the city’s nearly 6,000-person workforce, with additional cuts at libraries, parks and the city’s homeless services hub as Long Beach copes with rising personnel costs, soaring legal payouts, a clawback of federal grants and a slowdown in the local economy that has stifled tax revenue.

A range of positions are set to be cut, spanning more than a dozen departments or offices, from managerial roles to rank-and-file employees. It includes fire captains and police lieutenants, analysts and clerks, crossing guards, librarians and investigators, among others. Officials have said the impact will be felt citywide, in the government’s ability to analyze and respond to emerging issues.

A city spokesman noted that police and fire employees losing their jobs will be transferred to open roles elsewhere in the departments, including in a new patrol beat specific to the shoreline. Many other employees will not be as lucky.

How we got here

This is the first time Long Beach has proposed layoffs for employees paid out of its general fund in nearly six years. Dozens of Health Department jobs were cut in 2024, but those positions were tied specifically to the loss of state grant funding and the conclusion of Long Beach Recovery Act pandemic aid.

The past couple of budgets relied on reserve cash to cover their shortfalls and delay layoffs — $7.8 million in fiscal year 2025 and $5.8 million in fiscal year 2024, the latter pulled from COVID recovery funds. But officials say that strategy was short-term and unsustainable.

The city already pulled $27 million from four reserve accounts to close out the current fiscal year, exhausting its operating reserves and taking $16.5 million from its $50.1 million emergency reserve — money set aside specifically for natural disasters and unforeseen crises.

The moves would save $55.9 million, allowing the city to add $9.8 million back to reserves. It currently has only $33.6 million in reserves.

What's on the chopping block

In public safety, the city proposed shutting down Fire Engine 14, which operates out of the station near Colorado Lagoon, to save $3.8 million, citing data showing it responds to the fewest fire calls in the city and 87% of calls received are for paramedics. Officials also proposed converting one engine from permanent staffing to cheaper overtime; in the Police Department, they suggest eliminating 17 vacant patrol officer positions, cutting $2.68 million in police overtime, consolidating part of financial crimes into property crimes, and eliminating 18 investigator roles.

Pressed by the loss of $11 million in county, state and federal funding, the Health Department faces heavy losses, including 79 positions cut — including eight positions within the city homelessness bureau. The reductions will affect programs and agencies that handle medical shuttle services, weekend homelessness outreach, one of the city’s two mobile homeless outreach centers, workforce development and homelessness prevention.

If approved, the proposed budget would also cut more than half of its motel voucher shelter rooms (from 40 to 15) and offer rapid rehousing assistance to 45 fewer households. City leaders said the cuts are targeted to keep all municipal shelter beds open, a crucial need as Long Beach struggles to reduce local homelessness, which rose by 3.7% in the past year.

Programs and services citywide would also see reductions. Hours and days at five city libraries — Bayshore, Burnett, El Dorado, Harte and Michelle Obama — would be cut to five days a week under reduced hours. Teen programming at Chavez Park, summer swim classes at Jordan and Millikan high schools, and the city’s involvement with the afterschool WRAP program are all expected to be eliminated.

An additional 25 positions would be cut by contracting out services for parking collections, school crossing guards and the city’s reprographics office. To offset administrative cuts in Public Works, parking meters would be installed around City Hall, Lincoln Park, the courthouse and Ocean Boulevard, and citywide parking rates would rise from $2 to $3 an hour, with the revenue redirected to street light repairs, solar conversions, weed abatement and median upkeep.

Several departments would also see agencies consolidated, which officials say is part of a necessary restructuring to focus on emerging issues like traffic safety and community health.

What’s next

Workers were informed of potential layoffs as early as Thursday morning. Civil service rules allow for employees with more experience to bump those with fewer years on the job, meaning workers can move within or across departments, displacing colleagues.

The plan is not finalized yet. Going forward, the City Council will deliberate the budget through a series of public meetings, town hall forums and study sessions until final approval, typically at the end of September.

The earliest potential adjustments came Thursday, during Mayor Rex Richardson’s proposed version of the budget that would restore several programs and reinstate 70 positions.

For example, Richardson said he wants to undo the plan for a rotating engine; keep four of the 17 eliminated police patrol positions and two Quality of Life officers, while reinstating $400,000 for officers’ overtime pay; preserve youth programs, and homelessness programs; add new disease prevention and nursing positions; and continue to fund the Office of Equity position that oversees the city’s deportation defense fund while also adding more money to its account. The defense fund currently has $548,000.

Funding, he explained, could come from a line of new sources, like the $7 million to $8 million expected annually from the voter-approved county Measure ER, an updated cost-recovery agreement with the Port of Long Beach for fire services adding $5.9 million and $1.5 million saved from not holding a general election because races were already decided in the June primary.

Sparing no detail on the starkness of the economic picture, officials say it figures to get worse before it gets better. After a $27.3 million deficit expected next year, officials are confident they will have consecutive years of meager surpluses.

Despite the headwinds, they say, Long Beach is on solid footing, with a 17.5% drop in overall crime, with paramedics responding 30 seconds faster than they did last year, with 12% more city shelter beds, thousands of new, high-paying aerospace jobs, and work underway on new streets, bridges — and a very expensive pool — as part of a billion-dollar infrastructure plan ahead of the 2028 Olympics.

The city also welcomed a new amphitheater and an independent baseball team in the past year, and it continues to draw $2 billion in tourism and economic impact — outpacing San Diego, Anaheim, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco in key hotel use and visitor metrics.

By following the city’s plans, Richardson said Long Beach would achieve a structural surplus by 2028 — the first in more than a decade.

“Our responsibility today is not only to today’s budget, it’s to the long-term financial health of our city and to the thousands of employees who depend on a stable and sustainable organization,” Richardson said. “Our employees deserve to be more than temporary fixes that simply postpone difficult decisions. They deserve a city with a stable financial future. That’s why I believe we have to stay the course.”