What happened to you at an El Monte Union high school was not okay.
Rosemead. El Monte. Arroyo. Mountain View. South El Monte. Five high schools, one district office, and a state investigation that read 113 complaints and 88,000 documents before it said, in March, that the district had not done its job. If a teacher or a coach there did something to you, this is about you.
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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.
This applies to you no matter what
- You told somebody at the school and nothing happened. The state's investigators found that this is what the district did with reports, over and over, and the HR director admitted under oath that her office threw out the disciplinary files it was legally required to keep.
- It was a coach, not a teacher. Coaches were two of the three men in the very first complaint, and nobody has treated the gym any differently from the classroom since.
- It was the 1990s. That is when a lot of the women already in the case were at Rosemead. Your birth year matters more than the year it happened; the deadline section below explains why.
- You are still a student, or your kid is. For anything after the start of 2024 there is no deadline at all.
- You never told a soul. Most of the people already in the case carried it alone for twenty years first.
- You're a parent, a brother, a friend asking for someone who can't. Reach out anyway.
The El Monte Union lawsuits and the state investigation: what the public record says, and when
We didn't write what's below. The California Attorney General did, and the courts, and the reporters who covered them, and we link to every one of them. We don't add to it. The individual staff members named in the suits have their own cases, and nothing here decides them.
May 6, 2024
Three former students sued the district over a teacher and two coaches. Two months later nine more women filed, naming five men, with abuse described from the 1990s into the mid-2000s. Most of it at Rosemead High. CBS Los Angeles.
August 2024
The California Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation into the district after a national news series called the district's schools a predator's playground. Attorney General.
March 20, 2026
The Attorney General's office settled with the district and filed the deal in Los Angeles Superior Court. Its investigators had gone through 113 complaints, 88,000 documents, 199,000 emails. Their conclusion: between 2018 and 2025 the district didn't handle reports of sexual harassment, assault and abuse the way California law says it must, and never had the complaint process the law demands. What the district signed up for: four years under a court's eye, a compliance coordinator the DOJ signs off on, a report every quarter. Attorney General.
March 2026
The district's head of human resources admitted in a deposition that her office had discarded disciplinary records it was legally required to keep. A jury had already awarded $5 million to one student abused by a teacher the district kept on. CalMatters.
March 27, 2026
Survivors stood outside the district office and asked the board to fire the superintendent. Their lawyer said the district was still putting up roadblocks in a case for more than a dozen victims. ABC7.
We checked this on September 11, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from March 27, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.
Who can be held responsible in an El Monte Union High School District lawsuit
The district. That is the whole point, and it is what the people ahead of you have done. A teacher who abuses a student answers for himself; a district that was told, and kept him in the classroom, and then threw away the file, answers for all of them. That is what the state found and what the lawsuits say. The district is a public body, which changes a few things a lawyer will walk you through: no punitive damages against it, but no cap on what a jury can award, and for anything after 2009 no government-claim hurdle before you file.
The men named in the suits are also defendants. Some have criminal cases of their own. Your case doesn't need theirs to finish first.
Your deadline: the California statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse at a public school
Until you turn 40, or five years from the day you understood what it did to you, whichever is later. That is California's rule for anyone abused as a minor (Code of Civil Procedure 340.1). It is why we ask your birth year: born in 1987 or later and the door is open on age alone. Born earlier, it turns on discovery, which is a conversation, not a date.
For anything after January 1, 2024, there is no deadline at all. And because the district is a public body, one more thing matters: for abuse after the start of 2009 you do not have to file a government claim first (Government Code 905(m)). Older than that and a lawyer needs to look at your facts before anyone promises you anything.
Plainly: if you were at one of these schools in the 2000s or later, you almost certainly still have time. If it was the 1990s, you may, and it is worth one call to find out.
Your situation still qualifies even if
- You never told a soul. Not a spouse, not a sister, nobody.
- You don't have a word for what happened, and you're half convinced it wouldn't count.
- You liked him. He was the teacher everybody liked. That is in the complaints, too.
- You got in trouble at school, or after. It has no bearing here.
- You live somewhere else now. Most of the class of whatever-year does.
Schools covered
Rosemead High School · El Monte High School · Arroyo High School · Mountain View High School · South El Monte High School · Fernando R. Ledesma and the district's other programs. A different district in the San Gabriel Valley? The questions still work. Answer them and say where.
Questions people are asking
Can I sue the El Monte Union High School District?
More than a dozen former students already have, and the state's own investigation now sits behind those cases. Whether you can depends mostly on when you were born and when it happened, which is what the questions above sort out.
Rosemead High, the 1990s. Too late?
Maybe not. Several of the women who filed in 2024 are describing exactly those years. The clock in California is your 40th birthday or five years after you connected the dots, whichever is later, and where a public school is the defendant the answer for anything before 2009 turns on facts only a lawyer can weigh. One call sorts it.
What did the state investigation find?
That the district spent 2018 to 2025 not handling reports the way California law makes it, and never had a real complaint process. Four years of court oversight followed. The HR director's admission about thrown-out disciplinary files came out separately, in a deposition.
What kind of lawyer do I need?
A civil lawyer who handles institutional sexual abuse against public school districts, not only the individual. That is the only kind we work with, and the firm we work with handles California cases wherever you live now.
How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?
Here, nothing. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case.
Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer
I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.
What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.
I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.
Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.
What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.
- You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
- A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
- You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.
How this works
ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed California attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.
You never pay a dollar
Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.