Lucia Mar concealed misconduct and wasted $386,000. It’s a costly lesson that hurt kids

The Lucia Mar Unified School District just got handed an expensive lesson in public transparency.

The district has been ordered to pay The Tribune more than $80,000 to cover the newspaper’s legal expenses in a public records case involving a former Nipomo High School coach accused of sexual misconduct.

It’s a shameful case that was mishandled from the get-go.

First, the Lucia Mar district allowed an accused sexual predator to quietly walk away.

It then tried to hide documentation of his wrongdoing.

And when that failed, it attempted to paint itself as the victim of the media, complaining The Tribune’s public records requests were “frivolous” and “premature.”

A judge didn’t buy that, and no one else should either.

The district’s own internal investigation upheld serious accusations against former Nipomo High girls’ wrestling coach Justin Magdaleno, including improper touching, bullying and sexual harassment.

Yet the district sat on that report for nearly a year.

Now it’s paying the price.

In all, Lucia Mar will have spent at least $386,000, when you add up its own legal fees, the money owed to The Tribune, and the severance and leave money paid to get rid of the accused coach.

And it’s still not over; the district also faces civil action arising from the case.

This is money that should be spent on students. Instead, it’s going to pay for past mistakes.

But that’s not the worst of it.

It’s far more disturbing that the district allowed Magdaleno to quietly resign, taking with him $32,000 in severance pay and a written guarantee that the district would provide only “dates of employment, position held, and salary information” if contacted by a potential employer in the future.

And he might have gotten away with it, if not for the persistence of former Tribune reporter Travis Gibson, who broke the story, and Matt Fountain, who picked it up and continued to press for information.

If you doubt the importance of local journalism, think of what could have happened if Magdaleno had been able to slip away and start over somewhere else.

Instead, Gibson and Fountain were able to shine a light on what happened at Nipomo High.

Tribune reporting also uncovered allegations against Magdaleno by students at Pioneer Valley High School in Santa Maria, where he worked before starting at Lucia Mar.

When a district’s own investigation confirms accusations of sexual misconduct — as happened in Lucia Mar — it’s unbelievable that the district would withhold that information from other schools.

That’s aiding and abetting a potential sexual predator.

Even more disturbing, there are no safeguards in place to prevent this from happening over and over again, at districts up and down the state.

For all the reforms that stemmed from the #METOO movement, it is not expressly forbidden for school districts to allow toxic employees to move from district to district.

State legislation has been proposed that would put an end to that, but the bill went nowhere. Supporters have blamed powerful teachers unions.

Meanwhile, reports of abusive employees in the school systems keep piling up, in California and elsewhere.

At least Justin Magdaleno was outed due to persistent reporting and the willingness of a news organization to take Lucia Mar to court.

But how many other “mobile predators” have been able to float from district to district?

Enough.

If we can’t trust school districts to do the right thing, it’s up to lawmakers to act.

It’s past time to demand that every school district put vulnerable children ahead of the Justin Magdalenos of the world.

This story was originally published March 31, 2020 at 1:43 PM.