What happened to you at Jordan High was not okay. A Long Beach jury has already said as much.

Mark Santo taught history. Lindbergh Middle School first, then Jordan High in North Long Beach for nearly four years, where he ran the athletic department too. A jury at the Long Beach courthouse convicted him in June 2023 (sex crimes against two girls under 14, and against a former student who'd just turned 18) and that October the judge handed down 80 years to life. Seven women have sued Long Beach Unified since. Their complaint's version: the district saw the signs and left him in the classroom anyway. If you were one of his students, Jordan or Lindbergh, 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 were never part of the criminal case. Three young women testified at his trial. The appeals court noted evidence about two more Jordan students that was never charged. That is what a prosecutor could prove, not a count of everyone he reached.
It never went as far as what was in court. A message on Snapchat, a hug that went on too long, being kept back in the little room behind his classroom. His own principal at Lindbergh warned him in writing about the Instagram account in 2013, and a school answers for what it was warned about.
You told a teacher, a counselor, a coach, anyone at Jordan or Lindbergh, and he was still there the next semester. That is the district's part of this, and it is the part seven women are suing over.
You were 18 by the time it happened, but he had been your teacher first. The jury convicted him over exactly that. A lawyer has to look at the dates, but do not rule yourself out.
You are 24 or 26 now and figure it's done with. California's deadline for anyone abused as a minor runs to age 40 at the earliest. That is most of your twenties and all of your thirties.
You're a parent, a teammate, a friend asking for someone who can't. Reach out anyway.

The Jordan High record: the warnings, the resignation, the conviction, the sentence, the lawsuit, and when

We didn't write what's below. The Los Angeles County District Attorney, a jury, two appeals courts, the district's own personnel file and the Long Beach Post reporters who pried it loose did, and we link to every one. We don't add to it. Where a line comes from the civil complaint, it is an allegation, and we say so.

2013 to April 2018

Santo was still at Lindbergh Middle School in 2013 when the principal put a written reprimand in his file. The reason: he'd been "liking" female students' photos on Instagram from the handle @msanto69. Keep to approved school channels, the reprimand said, and then this: "Continuing to use Instagram with students and the user name 'msanto69' puts you at risk for possible sexual harassment allegations." He kept his job and moved to Jordan High, where he taught for nearly four years and served as athletic director. In February 2018 Jordan's principal called him in after another teacher overheard three girls talking about him hugging them; in that meeting he admitted a "one time sexual act" with a former LBUSD student who was 18, and he was removed from the classroom. By April the district moved to fire him and he agreed to resign instead, under an agreement in which LBUSD promised to tell a future employer of adults nothing about the allegations at all. Long Beach Post, from LBUSD records.

May 2020

Prosecutors went first with the family friend. By the time they arrested him, on May 18, 2020, over one count, a lewd act on a child under 14 (she was 13, and it was his La Mirada home, in October 2015), he had a new job teaching adults with disabilities for an Orange County community college district. Had it known? It would not say. As for the 2018 report, police had pursued it at the time, then dropped it once they lost contact with the young woman; the Long Beach Post got the records. Long Beach Post.

July 2020

The case grew to six felonies involving three former students from Jordan or Lindbergh, two of them minors at the time. One count went back to a girl abused in his Lindbergh classroom in the 2012-13 school year; another was the former student who had been 18. Not guilty, he pleaded. The district's spokesman said it had taken "appropriate action when he did work here." Long Beach Post.

June 5, 2023

After a weeklong trial and less than a day of deliberation, a Long Beach jury convicted Mark Anthony Santo of two counts of lewd acts on a child under 14, forcible sexual penetration, forcible oral copulation, and two counts of assault with intent to commit those acts, and found true that there were multiple victims. He was taken into custody in the courtroom. Long Beach Post.

October 17, 2023

Judge Laura Laesecke sentenced him to 80 years to life in state prison. "You are a predator, Mr. Santo," she said, and noted that his family had apparently known, that he had been allowed to resign, and that he had gone on to teach again. He left the courtroom rather than hear the three young women speak. Long Beach Post.

December 27, 2023

Seven former students, Jane Does 1 through 7, filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court (No. 23STCV31632, Department 11 at the Spring Street Courthouse, designated provisionally complex) against Long Beach Unified School District, Mark Anthony Santo and his wife Jennifer Santo, who was an LBUSD teacher herself. Docket.

December 31, 2023

"Ignored and concealed the sexual abuse of plaintiffs and others by Mark Santo that had already occurred": that is the complaint's charge against the district, pleaded as sexual abuse and battery, sex trafficking, negligence, conspiracy and public-entity liability for failing to perform a mandatory duty. Its list of red flags runs to his lewd electronic messages to students, his ability to seclude pupils in private areas, and his "sitting and lying down with young females on a couch in his classroom." The plaintiffs attended Lindbergh and/or Jordan; LBUSD, asked, would not comment on pending litigation. Long Beach Post.

May 2 and July 9, 2025

Upheld. The Second District Court of Appeal, three justices, left every conviction standing and vacated only the pair of assault counts, duplicative of the more serious ones; the panel also wrote that the uncharged acts heard at trial involved two students from Jordan High School. On July 9 the California Supreme Court declined to review, so 80 years to life it stays. Long Beach Post.

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from May 2 and July 9, 2025. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a Jordan High School lawsuit

The district. That is the whole point, and it is what the seven women ahead of you have done. A teacher who abuses a student answers for himself, and Santo is answering, 80 years of it. A district that put a written warning in his file in 2013 about how he talked to girls online, then gave him a high school classroom and the athletic department, then, in 2018, let him resign under a deal that kept the allegations out of his next employer's ear, answers for the students in between. That is what the complaint says. Long Beach Unified is a public body, which changes two things a lawyer will walk you through: there is no cap on what a jury can award against it, and for anything after the start of 2009 there is no government claim to file first.

Santo himself, and, in the filed case, his wife. The complaint alleges she helped. Both are defendants alongside the district. Your case does not need theirs to finish first, and it does not need you to have been one of the three in the criminal trial.

One more thing, plainly. The district has said it is not commenting. It has not admitted any of this. A complaint is a complaint until a court says otherwise, and we don't pretend different.

Your deadline: the California statute of limitations for 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 the rule in Code of Civil Procedure 340.1 for anyone abused as a minor. Born in 1987 or later and the door is open on age alone, and his students were born well after that, around 1996 to 2004, which makes their 40th birthdays 2036 to 2044. Born earlier, it turns on discovery, which is a conversation, not a date.

Because the district is a public body there is one more rule, and here it cuts your way: for abuse after January 1, 2009, you do not have to file a government claim first (Government Code 905(m)), and nothing in this record predates 2012 anyway. Abuse after January 1, 2024 carries no deadline at all.

So nobody from Santo's years at Jordan or Lindbergh, 2012 to 2018, is anywhere near out of time. What runs out isn't the calendar. It's the texts, the Snapchat screenshots, and who remembers which adult was told what.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told a soul. Not a parent, not a teammate, nobody. The young women in the criminal case carried it for years first.
You liked him. He was the teacher who noticed you, the one who called you his daughter. The prosecutor told the jury that was the method.
It happened at his house, not on campus. Two of the three young women in the criminal case said the same.
It never went as far as what was in court, and you figure that means it doesn't count.
You think the seven who sued got everyone's share. They filed for themselves.
You live in Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, anywhere now. The case is a California case wherever you are.

Schools covered

Jordan High School, 6500 Atlantic Avenue in North Long Beach, and everything that ran under its name: his classroom, athletics, team travel, anything off campus he arranged. Lindbergh Middle School, where he taught before Jordan, and Rogers Middle School, which the complaint names. A different Long Beach Unified school? The questions still work. Answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Long Beach Unified School District over Mark Santo?

Seven former students already have; their case was filed in December 2023 and is pending in Los Angeles Superior Court. Whether you can depends mostly on when you were born and whether you were a minor, which is what the questions above sort out. A conviction is on the record, so nobody has to prove from scratch who he was.

What kind of lawyer do I need?

A civil lawyer who sues school districts for institutional sexual abuse, 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.

Lindbergh, not Jordan. Does this page still apply to me?

Yes. Lindbergh is where he taught first, where the 2013 reprimand came from, and where one of the convicted counts happened; the seven plaintiffs attended Lindbergh and/or Jordan. Pick Lindbergh on the first question and go on.

Was Mark Santo convicted?

Yes, by a Long Beach jury on June 5, 2023, and the record above lists every count. Eighty years to life followed in October. He appealed and lost (May 2025), and the state Supreme Court said no that July.

And what does the 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.