San Diego Unified School District Sexual Abuse Claims

San Diego Unified is California’s second-largest school district. Its handling of sexual misconduct complaints has been examined by juries, by the courts, and, most recently, by the U.S. Department of Education. If you were abused by a San Diego Unified employee, this is the record that matters to your claim.

The federal Title IX findings

In August 2024 the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced a resolution agreement with San Diego Unified after reviewing 253 reports of sexual harassment and sexual assault from the 2017–18 through 2019–20 school years. The office found that the district “more often than not” failed to meet its obligations under Title IX. Fourteen of the reports involved conduct by employees toward students, and nearly all of the cases had been resolved informally. The agreement requires the district to review prior complaints from the first semester of 2019–20, train students in grades 3 through 12 every year, keep a central record of complaints, and report back to the federal government. Separately, Voice of San Diego reported that complaint records about a La Jolla High School teacher, which the district had repeatedly said did not exist, were found, by the district’s own account, in a storage shed in 2019.

Crawford High School

In August 2018 a San Diego jury awarded $2.1 million to a former Crawford High School student who was sexually abused by a teacher over about eight months beginning when he was 15. The teacher had pleaded guilty in 2016. The jury found the district negligent for failing to prevent the abuse and assigned it a share of the verdict.

La Jolla High School

In 2020 several former students sued a La Jolla High physics teacher about whom students had complained for a decade, the school’s former principal, and the district. The earliest alleged incident dated to 2003 and, according to the suit, was reported to district officials; the student has said she told the principal within minutes. The teacher was removed from the classroom for two weeks in 2016, retired in 2017, and had his teaching credential revoked in 2019. The lawsuit settled in April 2023 on undisclosed terms.

What the record shows

Each of these matters turned on the same question: what did the adults in charge know, and what did they do? Complaints that are handled “informally,” teachers who are quietly removed and allowed to retire, and records that cannot be found are the facts a civil case is built on.

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 San Diego Unified employee or volunteer, at any school in the district, at any time. That includes conduct that was reported to the district and resolved informally, and conduct that was never reported at all.

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.