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# Another school disaster calls for better scrutiny
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/another-school-disaster-calls-for-better-scrutiny/
- Published: 2008-05-12T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T19:35:37.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Malibu, #archive-import

THE SANTA MONICA MALIBU UNIFIED School District has another disaster on its hands. Well respected veteran Lincoln Middle School teacher, Thomas Beltran, was arrested May 3 and arraigned May 6 on charges of performing numerous lewd and lascivious acts on five of his female students — children under the age of 14.

Beltran, a 30-year SMMUSD employee, taught English as a second language to seventh graders. According to published reports one of his victims was allegedly molested for more than a year. All the alleged incidents took place in the classroom. To make things worse, according to court documents, “... the alleged abuse took place as far back as Dec. 1, 2004." The Los Angeles Times reported (May 7) Beltran was,“investigated by police, but not charged, for the same crime in 2006.”

Keeping in mind Beltran’s 20-year tenure at Lincoln, the obvious question is how long had this really been going on and why didn’t someone, anyone, do something about the alleged abuse until just a few days ago?

District officials refused to answer parents’ questions at a public meeting last Monday night about whether any teachers might have known about the alleged abuse because “it is a personnel issue." The Los Angeles Times disclosed (May 7), “District officials declined to say whether Beltran had been accused of improper behavior or disciplined in the past." On May 9, the L.A. Times reported that “additional allegations... may date as far back as 1998." However, I’ve heard from a number of reliable sources that the abuse may really go back as far as 1993.

Oscar de la Torre, school board president, told the L.A. Times that the board only learned about the 2006 complaint after Beltran was arrested, blaming being uninformed on a communication breakdown. Apparently, the alleged victim was removed from Beltran’s class and Beltran said at the time that his actions were “misinterpreted." He was warned not to touch female students. However, “No mention of the complaint was found in Beltran’s personnel file,” de la Torre said It seems that a lot of red flags were ignored, here. Failures of communication, lack of monitoring and apparently no follow-up allowed innocent children to be put in harm’s way. When a school district has any knowledge that a teacher or employee is behaving inappropriately and doesn’t take appropriate action, then heads must roll. Sullying the reputation of our schools is unacceptable. Risking the well being of our children is unforgivable.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 12, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/051208.pdf?ref=smdp.com)