speaking to the Long Beach Post last year about their experience<\/a>.<\/p>\nIn November, the Post filed a public records request for school district documents about the incident, including any internal review, investigation or assessment conducted in response to the alleged abuse.<\/p>\n
Four months later, Long Beach Unified responded by withholding almost all relevant records. It disclosed only four emails, which show that the contracted agency that employed the aide launched an investigation, removed him from his LBUSD assignment and requested that he provide a statement as part of the investigative process.<\/p>\n
In a message to the Post, Long Beach Unified\u2019s general counsel acknowledged other documents exist but blocked them from disclosure for a range of reasons, including to protect employee privacy, preserve the district\u2019s internal deliberation process and shield information he said is attorney-client privileged.<\/p>\n
That decision, however, likely runs afoul of the law, according to David Snyder, a lawyer and former journalist who is now executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, which litigates public records cases. There are a number of exemptions in the California Public Records Act that allow public agencies like school districts to conceal records, but courts have found that in cases where there is a finding of misconduct or discipline imposed, most exemptions against disclosure vanish.<\/p>\n
Even when allegations are not found to be true, if the charges are found to be substantial and well-founded \u2014 such as allegations of child sexual abuse that resulted in an employee\u2019s dismissal \u2014 courts have found that \u201cpublic employee privacy must give way to the public\u2019s right to know,\u201d Snyder quoted from a 2004 court case.<\/p>\n
The school district also withheld records citing an exemption that protects law enforcement investigatory records, claiming it applies to their office of school safety. Yet this exemption would not apply to investigatory documents generated by or shared between administrators and other personnel, Snyder said.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the district said that the school learned of the incident from the contracted agency, and the aide was \u201cimmediately removed from campus and from any further contact with students.\u201d The district then conducted an internal review and filed a report with law enforcement several days later, the spokesperson said. Any documents generated through the internal review and report were not shared with the Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cLong Beach Unified remains committed to maintaining safe and supportive school environments, and we encourage students, staff, and families to report concerns promptly,\u201d the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n
Gonzalez, the Webster student\u2019s grandmother, said the family has been left in the dark, with no new information from the school district after the initial call from the principal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way it\u2019s being treated is as if nothing happened, it\u2019s very, very frustrating, very demoralizing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
After the incident two years ago, Lozano\u2019s daughter started acting out: she threw tantrums, didn\u2019t want to be hugged or touched, grew fearful of being left alone and grabbed at her mother\u2019s chest. Lozano said her daughter is doing much better now that she is attending a different school in the district. \u201cShe\u2019s started talking more, coming out of her shell,\u201d Lozano said. \u201cShe\u2019s a little bit more relaxed now, whereas before, she was really traumatized.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet Gonzalez worries that other children may have been abused and their families may have received even less information than she has. Lozano fears that as more time passes, the chances the alleged perpetrator will be convicted diminish significantly.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County District Attorney\u2019s office said prosecutors are still studying the case and weighing whether to file criminal charges. Law enforcement has not released additional details of the incident to Lozano and Gonzalez, they said, adding that they have received more information about the alleged abuse from the Long Beach Post than they have from the district, police, district attorney and their lawyer.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything is just kind of frozen at the moment,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cIt\u2019s always in our mind. It never goes away.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Long Beach Unified School District on Friday said it will not release records about its investigation into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-216423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}