Montecito Union School announced a $7.5 million lawsuit settlement over alleged sexual abuse by a former Principal in the 1970s.
The school’s Board of Trustees approved the settlement and made a public announcement last week stating this agreement includes no admission of liability.
“We are deeply mindful of the enduring pain caused by sexual abuse and feel for any person who has experienced such abuse. Together, as a community, we share the responsibility to protect and care for our children. We hold deep respect for any individual impacted and hope for their healing and peace,” Board President Susannah Osley and Superintendent Anthony Ranii said in a joint statement.
The lawsuit claimed that former Principal Stanford Kerr sexually assaulted two brothers between the years of 1972 and 1978 and that school staff knew of the abuse and failed to protect the two children. Kerr died in 2013.
The case was set to go to trial with jury selection scheduled last week before the district announced a settlement stating the decision was made to protect their students and instructional program.
“While we were prepared to mount a vigorous defense, the possibility of significantly larger verdicts is well documented in sexual abuse cases throughout California. Such a verdict could have substantially diminished our ability to serve students now and well into the future. Because the District does not have insurance coverage for these historic claims, continued litigation created exceptional financial vulnerability. Settling now allows us to stabilize operations and remain focused on today’s students,” Osley and Ranii stated.
The statement goes on to say that the district is refining policies, conducting rigorous background checks, and training staff on mandatory reporting obligations. Additionally they will be implementing a hiring freeze and will divert repair funds to operational costs.
Montecito Union School said no current employees were employed by the district during the 1970s, and they did not name Kerr in their public statement, but only referred to him as a “former staff member.”
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Amazing the school would settle a case when the accusers had no proof.
i agree. alleged victims seemed “sketchy” and while it might have happened , proving it seemed problematic. However, California juries have recently awarded large sums in amounts similar to this settlement in similar cases. Legislature’s well intended ‘solution’ to a serious problem punishes current students and school districts for tragic events that occurred decades ago. Or which might have occurred in this case.
Pretty sick you and Happy Camper assume there was “no proof” and the victims are lying. Where in this article does it say there was “no proof?”
What “proof” do you folks demand of child rape? I mean, we have concrete evidence of billionaires doing it and MAGAts (not saying you necessarily) still don’t seem to care if they are walking free.
It’s more so about having to defend or prove a legal case when something is 50 years old. The Independent has a more detailed report about this and the CA law that is allowing these lawsuits to move forward. The above commenter is correct in saying that these victims should get justice and current students shouldn’t be punished. Now if it’s a lawsuit against the Catholic Church, by all means, go for it. They’ll just have to melt down some of their gold plates if they need to, but the public school system isn’t exactly flush with cash.
Regardless of what “should” happen, the school IS settling, which might or might not be justice for the alleged victims–depending on the truth of the allegations. (I too tend to believe that they are, but we might be wrong.) And I don’t know how you would provide such “justice” without “punishing current students” (which is a bit of a stretch).
Take a civics class … the requirement in a civil case is preponderance of evidence, not “proof” … you might also want to do some reading in epistemology to understand such concepts as “proof” and “evidence” … note that *testimony* is a form of legal evidence. And it’s well known that organizations and even individuals often settle due to perceived risk of losing or even just due to time and cost. The reason in this case is stated in the article: “the possibility of significantly larger verdicts is well documented in sexual abuse cases throughout California”. See, juries are made up of human beings with all their prejudices and biases and various other forms of irrationality.
Also, note that failing to understand things or being surprised by them is not a virtue. In fact there’s a pretty strong inverse correlation between intelligence and being surprised by events–that’s largely what intelligence is about.
As if the abuse isn’t disgusting enough, I find it particularly disturbing “that school staff knew of the abuse….” I know teachers want to protect each other, but they should first be protecting students from other teachers/coaches/administrators. Reporting sexual abuse in our schools should not be frowned up or looked at as “snitching.” Instances of sexual abuse appear quite often in our local news, so I believe the hiring practices need to change…dramatically. Possibly, as part of the interview process, a “lie detector” test could be administered to determine if prospective hires has abused minors (or anyone) in the past or even has an attraction to minors. Of course that’s extreme, but maybe it will prevent hiring those who have or want to abuse our children. So sad it may come to this in my opinion.
Bends Knees with more poorly thought out stream of consciousness meanderings.
> Bends Knees with more poorly thought out stream of consciousness meanderings.
Yup … he starts out talking about changing the culture that sees “snitching” as a bad thing, which is fine by me–that’s a mobster’s ethic. But then he transitions into (notoriously unreliable) lie detector tests–which are allowed for public employees but forbidden for private employees under the Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988–for detecting whether prospective hires have abused or are attracted to minors … a totally different issue from the “anti-snitch” culture.
The puzzling thing is that those stream-of-consciousness meanderings are more about the possibilities rather than what “might” have been for the most part. In this case, it got at least one person (“Anon”….LOL) to stop and think for a moment. Some might have been flummoxed or even puzzled (in a good way!). Thank goodness.
Meandering along again. It’s difficult to find any cogent thoughts in that interlude.
Can you please stop being dishonest? The article doesn’t say “that school staff knew of the abuse….”, it says “The lawsuit claimed …”.
> Possibly, as part of the interview process, a “lie detector” test could be administered
Sigh. https://www.apa.org/topics/cognitive-neuroscience/polygraph
I went to MUS in the late 60’s early 70’s. I find it almost impossible to believe how Stan Kerr could have pulled this off. The timeline/evidence chains seems equally hard to prove. Not saying that events did not occur but having been there it seems dubious.