Redlands Unified School District Sexual Abuse Claims

Redlands Unified School District has settled sexual abuse claims involving several different teachers and staff members since 2016, and in 2024 it was placed under court and Attorney General oversight. The pattern reported in those cases, teachers who stayed on campus after complaints, is the pattern a civil case is built on.

The record

• 2013–2023. A Redlands High and Citrus Valley High English teacher and soccer coach was arrested in 2013 and pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with three former students; she served six months in jail and gave birth to a student’s child in 2014. The district paid that student $6 million in August 2016, and in September 2023 agreed to pay $2.25 million to a second former student she had abused in 2007 and 2008, beginning when he was 14.
• 2018. The district’s insurer agreed to $15.7 million in settlements with eight former female students. Six of them alleged that a special education teacher abused them between 2006 and 2016; he pleaded guilty to abusing students and served 13 months in jail. The other two cases involved employees who acknowledged relationships with students but were not prosecuted.
• 2021. The district paid $11 million to seven survivors of a Clement Middle School English teacher who taught there until his arrest in 2002 and is serving a 74-year sentence.
• April 2024. The district settled a claim by a former student abused in 2003 by another former Clement Middle School teacher. Plaintiffs’ counsel said the district had by then paid $45.5 million to settle 16 sexual abuse lawsuits since 2016, that eight more cases were pending, and that the district had “a sordid history of enabling and ignoring sexual assaults on students by at least 15 predators during the past 20 years.”

The California Department of Justice investigated the district’s handling of sexual harassment and abuse complaints, expanding its investigation in October 2022; the probe became public in April 2023 after a CBS News documentary on the district, which followed a more-than-yearlong San Bernardino Sun investigation. In May 2024 the district entered a stipulated judgment placing it under at least five years of court and Attorney General oversight, after the Department of Justice found it had “systemically violated” laws including Title IX, the child abuse reporting law, and the Education Code.

What these cases show

In case after case in Redlands, the first complaint was not the last. California law makes a district responsible when its administrators knew or should have known that an employee posed a risk and left him in the classroom. Earlier complaints, even ones the district considered unsubstantiated at the time, are the evidence that proves it.

Why the district is responsible

The district is responsible when the adults in charge knew, or should have known, that an employee was a danger to students and did not act: a principal who got a complaint and did nothing, a teacher who saw something and did not report it, a district that hired someone without checking. Those failures are what a case is built on. If you are 40 or older and the abuse happened before 2024, a 2026 law also requires stronger proof against a public school district: clear and convincing evidence that the district actually knew of the misconduct and failed to act. How a claim against a school district works.

Is it too late?

Probably not. If the abuse happened before 2024, you can usually file until you turn 40, or within a few years of realizing as an adult that the abuse caused harm you are living with now (that window is five years today; a law signed in 2026 shortens it to three years starting January 1, 2027). If the abuse happened on or after January 1, 2024, there is no deadline at all. You do not have to file a government claim first. More on deadlines.

Who may have a claim

Anyone abused as a student by a Redlands Unified employee or volunteer, at Redlands High, Redlands East Valley, Citrus Valley, Clement, or any other school in the district, at any time, including survivors of the teachers described above who have not brought their own claims.

Talk to us

If you or your child was abused by an employee of this district, call 877-428-4544 any time. The conversation is private and free, cases are filed under a Doe name, and there is no attorney fee and no costs unless we recover.

The cases described on this page are drawn from court records and news reports. They are not our cases, and past results do not predict the outcome of any claim. This page is general information as of October 2026, not legal advice.