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# School district policy on abuse is out of step
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/school-district-policy-on-abuse-is-out-of-step/
- Published: 2008-06-06T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:11:58.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Malibu, #archive-import

*By MICHAEL CHWE is an associate professor in political science at UCLA and a parent of two children at Lincoln Middle School.*

ON MAY 2, 2008, A 12-YEAR-OLD STUDENT at Lincoln Middle School went with her parents to the Santa Monica Police Department and told detectives that Thomas Beltran, a teacher at Lincoln, had molested her during school hours. Police interviewed Beltran’s other students and three other students alleged that they also had been victimized. On May 3, Beltran was arrested. On May 6, Beltran was arraigned on 14 counts of sexual molestation.

The Lincoln student who first went to the police showed great courage. But she was not the first to complain about Beltran. On March 14, 2006, an equally courageous eighth-grade Lincoln student made a written complaint about the way that Beltran had touched her.

Kathy Scott, principal of Lincoln at the time, informed the SMPD, which investigated the complaint but found insufficient evidence for criminal charges. Scott then wrote a letter to the SMPD explaining that she had removed the student from Beltran’s classroom and had told Beltran to stop touching female students.

This student’s complaint was serious enough to warrant a police investigation, and serious enough that she is now considered a fifth victim in the charges against Beltran. But apparently no record of her complaint was kept anywhere at Lincoln or at the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District offices. According to its public statements, the only reason the SMMUSD now knows about her complaint, two years after the fact, is because the SMPD recently gave the SMMUSD a copy of Scott’s March 2006 letter. Why did Scott, in her capacity as principal, write a letter to the SMPD but not the SMMUSD district offices? Why was there no record of the 2006 complaint anywhere in the SMMUSD?

The SMMUSD policy on complaints against teachers … is unusual and, in the absence of any explanation given by the SMMUSD, can help explain Scott’s actions. The policy states that if a student, parent, other employee, or member of the public makes a complaint against a teacher, the teacher may request a meeting including the teacher, the complaining party, and an administrator. But “if the complainant refuses to attend the meeting, the complaint shall neither be placed in the unit member’s personnel file nor utilized in any evaluation, assignment, or disciplinary or dismissal action against the unit member.”

Very few children, or even adults, would be courageous enough to make a complaint against a teacher knowing that they would have to then meet the teacher face to face. This policy makes it almost impossible for student complaints to be investigated or even recorded.

This policy discourages especially the most serious complaints about teachers which intimidate, bully, or abuse the trust of students. Even now, students and parents who complain about teachers are told that the student must first confront the teacher, and otherwise there is no recourse. In Scott’s letter about the 2006 complaint, there is no mention that Beltran met with the student, and thus under SMMUSD policy, Beltran could veto any record of her complaint.

This policy is at variance with common practice and common sense, \[and\] … goes against the California Code of Regulations, which in Title 5, Section 4621, states that “local policies shall ensure that complainants are protected from retaliation and that the identity of a complainant alleging discrimination remain confidential as appropriate.”

Policies concerning complaints against teachers are available on the Internet for school districts in Burbank, El Segundo, Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Plumas, Redondo Beach, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Upland, California, and not one of these districts unconditionally requires that a student or parent must meet with the teacher after filing a complaint …. This policy is at variance with reporting practices common in the private and public sector; at UCLA … all allegations of sexual harassment against a professor are recorded, regardless of whether they are investigated, for at least five years and even as long as the professor remains employed.

When children are understandably fearful of speaking up, it is essential that their complaints be taken seriously and recorded. A complaint of inappropriate touching which does not merit action taken by itself might be part of a pattern over several years which definitely requires action. Without records, it is impossible to detect such patterns. … Why did the SMMUSD adopt an unusual policy on complaints against teachers which makes it almost impossible for a student’s complaint to even be recorded, especially for the most serious matters?

The SMMUSD has yet to take responsibility for this policy or answer questions about how it worked in the case of Beltran. This policy is outrageous and has placed, and continues to place, our children at risk.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 6, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/060608.pdf?ref=smdp.com)