LAUSD Settles With 9 More Girls Over Claims Of Teacher's Abuses

VAN NUYS, CA — Four years after the Los Angeles Unified School District agreed to pay $14.7 million to resolve a lawsuit filed by on behalf of seven girls who alleged they were molested by a San Fernando Valley elementary school teacher, the LAUSD has reached an accord with nine additional girl plaintiffs.

The teacher, Rene Tenas, pleaded no contest in 2018 to two felony counts of lewd acts on a child. He was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

His victims in the first suit were 9 and 10 years old. They suffered severe psychological damage, one of their attorneys said at the time.

The criminal charges against Tenas stemmed from allegations he inappropriately touched six girls, ages 9 and 10, at Hart Street Elementary School in Canoga Park.

During a final status conference on Tuesday, lawyers for the district and the nine newer plaintiffs told Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Wendy L. Wilcox that the current civil case has also been resolved just as trial was about to begin on Monday. The judge's clerk's minute order did not divulge any terms and it was not immediately clear if the settlement is subject to final approval by the Board of Education.

All of the alleged sexual abuses in the newer civil case occurred in 2009-16. Some of the plaintiffs went to Hart Street School and others to Liggett Elementary School in Panorama City. The plaintiffs' attorneys alleged that the LAUSD was negligent in its hiring of Tenas, training of administrators and staff regarding detecting and preventing sexual abuse and in its monitoring of employees, students and the campus itself.

LAUSD attorneys' argued that five Liggett School students could not show the district had received any of notice Tenas' alleged abuses of them. Two of the Hart Street School plaintiffs told the district what happened and the appropriate investigation began, but the other two Hart students did not tell anyone they were being molested, according to the LAUSD lawyers' pleadings.

One plaintiff, Doe 1, waited until 2022 to confide in anyone that she was alleged abused by Tenas, the district lawyers further stated in their court papers.

"Because Tenas was a child molester, Tenas made great efforts to hide his sexual misconduct, making it that much harder for the district to detect," the LAUSD attorneys stated in their pleadings.

City News Service