Studies sow 1 out of every 10 children are abused in school, and taxpayers are footing the legal bills. Help us, God!

From RealClearInvestigations. The teenage female athletes at California’s Pomona High School said they felt special when a handful of coaches there took them under their wing, spending more time with them than others, providing extra encouragement, sharing personal stories and, sometimes, seemingly harmless flirtatious talk.

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One track team member was amazed at a Nevada meet when she saw the coaches drinking, smoking marijuana, and sharing the party scene with teammates. But that attention turned to tragedy at a subsequent meet in Las Vegas when a coach brought the 16-year-old to his hotel room, plied her with alcohol, and, she says, raped her.

She mentioned the assault to administrators at the time and the principal assured her the matter would be handled. Instead, the coach kept his job and she endured so much ridicule she wound up leaving California.

Decades after the 1997 incident, her tragedy turned to triumph when a Los Angeles jury awarded her $35 million for pain and suffering in a civil trial this January …

And that’s not the only penalty the Pomona Unified School District taxpayers and insurers face from those reckless 1990s: Seven other former students have alleged abuse by the coaches, leading to three other lawsuits that have been settled privately and a fifth that remains active.

The long timeline from the incidents to settlement or trial, and the thumping amounts the Pomona Unified School District was hit with, reflect a new willingness to acknowledge and punish sexual predators. In the wake of the #MeToo movement and infamous cases such as those involving Catholic priests, Hollywood, and top-tier sports, momentum is building for what might comprise the biggest group of victims in sexual misconduct scandals: K-12 students victimized by teachers and other school employees.

A review of insurance industry reports, legal blogs and media accounts by RealClearInvestigations turned up $1.2 billion in settlements for school districts in the last decade. And there are clear indications that the pace and amount of legal liability has been rising, along with the impact that has for taxpayers and schools.

In 2021, for example, the insurance entity United Educators reported nine K-12 sexual misconduct settlements of a million dollars or more in seven states, totaling $38.6 million. Those figures rose to a dozen in 2022, totaling $233.3 million, before exploding last year. In 2023, UE reported on 19 such K-12 settlements that amounted to more than $325 million. Only one of those cases – a $50 million settlement against the now defunct Miracle Meadows School in West Virginia – involved a private school.

As states grapple with limitations on litigation against government entities, and in some cases open new windows for plaintiffs to sue, more victims are coming forward and school districts and insurers are scrambling to find the money juries and judges are awarding. Just how much all this may cost is unclear, because only cases that go to trial are a matter of public record, and usually it is only the big settlements or awards like Pomona Unified School District’s that draw attention. Scores of other lawsuits are being settled for smaller amounts or are kept private through agreement between the parties. …

Some of the once most respected institutions in the U.S. now face ruinous economic prospects after being engulfed by similar litigation. The Boy Scouts of America and some dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church have declared bankruptcy after grappling with thousands of lawsuits filed by people alleging sexual abuse at the hands of officials of those organizations.

The Boy Scouts are insolvent after a $2.4 billion settlement on more than 80,000 lawsuits, while the Catholic Church is still wrestling with the fallout from its long-term harboring of predatory priests, with their current legal bill standing at $3 billion. The totals for K-12 public school districts could potentially exceed those, given there are nearly 17,000 such districts in the U.S. with close to 50 million students today.

The exposure for the nation’s schools may be much greater, though the extent is unclear. News reports offer a steady of stream of articles about teachers arrested for molesting students – though those typically involve young, attractive female instructors and not men, who are more often the perpetrators. …

One of the few academic studies on the subject – a 2004 report Hofstra University researchers prepared for the DOE – estimated that one in 10 K-12 students suffer some form of verbal or physical sexual misconduct from school employees. The vast majority of incidents never result in an arrest or trial.

While there is no nationwide clearinghouse of information for how much money has been awarded in these cases, staggering penalties have mounted in the past four years: $121.5 million against the Moreno Valley, California, system; $102.5 million in the Union School District in San Jose, California; and nearly $88 million in various Long Island districts. Those have been accompanied by scores of smaller settlements, ranging from several hundred thousand dollars to $50 million.

The annual “large loss reports” prepared by United Educators cover a variety of areas where losses topped $1 million since 2021. Each year, the single largest category has been sexual misconduct cases. In 2021, UE said, those represented 10% of large losses it tracked. By 2023, sexual misconduct accounted for 25% of such cases, although that includes higher education litigation and a handful of incidents involving student-on-student misconduct. …

The cases also reveal a pattern in which school officials either ignored or downplayed warning signs that teachers, coaches, bus drivers or volunteers were engaged in problematic situations with students. The record is also dotted with predators who claimed victims at more than one school, having dodged flares at one place only to work again at another, a phenomenon advocacy groups call “passing the trash.” These patterns emerged in 78% of United Educators’ 2021 cases, although it fell to 42% in 2023. …

One way or another, taxpayers are financing these settlements, through higher costs or redirection of money that could go to education or other municipal services. In Pomona Unified’s case, for example, taxpayers will foot 60% of the total over five years. …

Some districts are paying more than others, especially in California. RCI reached out to a half dozen of the K-12 public school districts that have dealt with multiple lawsuits, including the Los Angeles Unified School District which, according to a Los Angeles Times story in April 2023, has paid nearly $400 million in settlements involving sexual misconduct by employees. …

The tab for all this is being shifted to the public in various ways, from higher insurance premiums and legal bills to the liquidation of public assets. In Long Island, for instance, the Cold Springs Harbor school district voted to drain a $7.7 million capital fund to pay settlements and legal fees after it reached a $14 million deal in the case of two students who alleged a teacher sexually abused them in the 1980s. …

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(Excerpt from RealClearInvestigations. Photo Credit: MuiZur on Unsplash)