By admin 
Three civil lawsuits filed in less than two months accuse the Elk Grove Unified School District of failing to protect students from sexual abuse by employees at three separate schools.
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The lawsuits involve allegations of sexual abuse when the plaintiffs were minors at Laguna Creek High School, Sheldon High School and Prairie Elementary School. All three cases were filed in Sacramento Superior Court.
Each lawsuit alleges the district failed to adequately supervise employees or students. Two also allege the district provided inadequate child abuse reporting training.
A spokesperson for the Elk Grove Unified School District did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
August lawsuit alleges abuse at Laguna Creek High School
Jane Doe K.T. vs. Elk Grove Unified School District and Michael Jones was filed Aug. 14.
The lawsuit alleges the plaintiff attended Laguna Creek High School beginning in 2008. It alleges that the school’s on-campus suspension coordinator, Michael Jones, groomed and repeatedly sexually assaulted the plaintiff on campus.
The abuse began after Jones learned that the plaintiff had a “troubled home life,” according to the lawsuit.
“Jones utilized Plaintiff’s situation as a run-away minor to continue sexually abusing her and occasionally giving her money to remain quiet about the abuse,” the lawsuit alleged.
The alleged abuse included Jones “unjustifiably” removing the plaintiff from class in order to sexually abuse her, making sexual jokes to and about her, pressuring her to spend time with him and “constantly bombarding plaintiff’s phone with demands of her nude pictures and videos,” the lawsuit alleged.
The lawsuit also alleges that teachers and staff members knew or should have known that Jones was “not fit to be on campus with students” due to “red flags” in his conduct, including the inappropriate attention he showed the plaintiff and his removal of her from class without justification.
The lawsuit alleges several causes of action against Jones and the district, including sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and failure to report suspected child abuse.
The plaintiff is seeking unspecified damages. A hearing in the case was set for June 15, according to the online court system.
September lawsuit alleges abuse at Sheldon High School
Donna Doe vs. Elk Grove Unified School District and Paula Duncan was filed Sept. 11.
The lawsuit alleges that Sheldon High School Spanish teacher John Young committed acts of childhood sexual assault against the plaintiff on school property and during school hours. Young was arrested and charged with four counts of childhood sexual assault and pleaded no contest in 2017, the lawsuit said.
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The lawsuit alleges that the school’s principal, Paula Duncan, and other school employees were aware that Young had engaged in social relationships with students, including driving high school students alone and being alone with female students in a locked classroom, which the suit said was a “red flag.”
The lawsuit also alleges that the district’s child abuse and neglect reporting training was “incomplete and ineffective,” which “further enabled school district employees to continue to commit acts of childhood sexual assault of school district students and endangered school district students including plaintiff Donna Doe.
The lawsuit lists two causes of action, including negligent supervision, investigation or retention of an employee and negligent supervision of the plaintiff when she was a minor.
The plaintiff is seeking unspecified damages. A hearing in the case was set for July 6, according to the online court system.
Most recent lawsuit alleges abuse at Prairie Elementary School
The most recent lawsuit, AR Doe vs. Elk Grove Unified School District and Robin Riley, was filed Sept. 22.
The lawsuit alleges that Prairie Elementary School paraeducator Eric Ernest Echols sexually abused the plaintiff in 2015 and 2016. It also alleges that school employees knew Echols regularly hugged female students, sat them on his lap and was seen alone with children on campus.
The lawsuit alleges that multiple students disclosed alleged sexual abuse to a district employee, who failed to report the allegations for more than 40 days. The employee eventually reported the allegations to the district’s human resources department, according to the lawsuit.
Echols was arrested and charged with sexually abusing seven Prairie Elementary School students, later pleading guilty to a misdemeanor count of child molestation and no contest to six felony counts of committing lewd acts on a child, according to the lawsuit. He was sentenced to 11 years in state prison.
The lawsuit alleges that the school district and Riley, the principal of Prairie Elementary School during the abuse, failed to properly supervise the plaintiff.
This lawsuit, also filed by the same lawyers as Donna Doe vs. Elk Grove Unified School District, similarly alleged that the school district’s child abuse and neglect reporting training was “incomplete and ineffective.”
The lawsuit lists two causes of action, including negligent supervision, investigation or retention of an employee and negligent supervision of the plaintiff when she was a minor.
The plaintiff is seeking unspecified damages. A hearing in the case was set for Aug. 18, according to the online court system.
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