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🚨 Nearly a BILLION dollars diverted from students to settle sexual assault claims against teachers in Los Angeles public schools. 🧵

The union-run government school system in California is a disaster. Worst 4th grade results in the country. We cannot allow this to go on.

— steve hilton (@SteveHiltonx) June 17, 2025

The Los Angeles Unified School District board has quietly approved borrowing nearly $900 million — including interest — to settle decades-old sexual assault cases involving former students. 

And that will likely not be enough to settle all the claims the nation’s second-largest school district is facing under 2019 legislation that allows victims of abuse by school employees to seek damages for incidents dating back to the 1970s. District spokesperson Britt Vaughan would not say how many claims the district faces, the number that have been settled and what they have cost to date.

Board members approved the expenditure on June 3 without comment, agreeing to borrow up to $500 million through judgment obligation bonds with an estimated 6.10% interest rate, documents show (see page 3). Unlike bonds for school construction, they did not require voter approval. The debt is due to be paid off in 15 years. The claims are not covered by insurance carriers. 

This fiscal year, the district’s undisclosed number of settlement claims was roughly $302 million, Vaughan said.

“The board has been talking about judgment obligation bonds for, I would say, about a year and a half,” board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin said in an interview. Spreading out the payments means “the district’s current students aren’t punished by depleting resources,” she said.

No public hearings were held. Board members were briefed about the matter in small groups, she said. “We also had several conversations in closed sessions, as we typically do with legal cases.” She did not disclose the number of claims made against the district or how many were settled.

The district administration will likely ask the board to approve more borrowing next year to settle additional claims, Ortiz Franklin said. 

The district is far from alone in facing massive payouts to victims who have filed claims under the legislation, Assembly Bill 218, which experts say is impacting local public agencies throughout the state.

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https://edsource.org/2025/lausd-agrees-to-pay-900-million-to-settle-sexual-assault-lawsuits/734608