What happened to you at an L.A. Unified school was not okay.

Miramonte. Telfair. De La Torre. Portola. Birmingham. Different neighborhoods, different decades, one school district on the other side of every one of those lawsuits. Los Angeles Unified has settled with hundreds of former students, most recently on April 30, 2026, and its own board has now borrowed three-quarters of a billion dollars to keep paying. So if you went to one of those schools, or to any other campus the district runs, and a teacher or a coach did something to you: this is about you. It was written for you.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

This applies to you no matter what

Your school never made the news and isn't one of the five above, which, honestly, doesn't matter. By the district's own count there were about 370 claims filed between the start of 2020 and mid-2025, from campuses all over the city, and the defendant is the same one either way.
Your family never sued, even when the other families at your school did. A settlement with them settles nothing for you. Miramonte families first settled in 2013; nineteen more of Berndt's former pupils settled in April 2026.
You told somebody, a principal, a counselor, your mom told the office, and nothing happened. At Telfair and De La Torre that is precisely what the complaints allege the district did with reports. It is the heart of the case, not a reason to stay quiet.
It was the nineties, or before that. Honestly, your birth year matters more than the year it happened; the deadline section below explains why, and why one call is worth it even if you're past forty.
What happened was less than what got read out in court, or you honestly can't put a word on it. Nobody expects a nine-year-old to have the words, and nobody expects the adult to have found them since.
You're a parent, a sibling, a friend asking for someone who can't. Reach out anyway. And for anything after January 1, 2024, there is no deadline at all.

The L.A. Unified record: the pleas, the lawsuits, the settlements, the borrowing, and when

None of what follows is ours. Prosecutors wrote it, and judges, and the district's own board, and the reporters who sat through the hearings, and we link to every line. Where a sentence says a complaint alleges something, that is all it is; the pleas and the sentences are the courts'. And because this page covers a whole district: the criminal records and settlements below name Miramonte, Telfair, De La Torre, Portola, Birmingham and Daniel Pearl Magnet. Any other L.A. Unified school is covered because the same district ran it, not because a separate record on that campus is cited here.

August 20 and September 20, 2012

Paul Chapel III, a third-grade teacher at Telfair Elementary in Pacoima, pleaded no contest in Los Angeles Superior Court to 13 counts of lewd act on a child, one for each of 13 pupils, eight and nine years old, September 2006 to April 2011. Twenty-five years, lifetime registration. The civil complaint two of his former students had already filed alleges the district hired him despite a 1987 civil case over his conduct with high-school students, moved him to an office during a 1997 molestation prosecution that ended in a hung jury, and then put him back in a classroom, at Telfair, in October 1998. NBC Los Angeles.

May 15, 2013

Jason Leon taught history at Portola Middle School in Tarzana until, district officials said, the allegations surfaced and he was moved off the campus. He pleaded guilty in Van Nuys to misdemeanor battery, misdemeanor child abuse causing mental suffering, and luring a minor under 14, over three girls, 13 and 14, in 2010 and June 2012. Misdemeanors, prosecuted by the City Attorney, so five years' probation and a forfeited credential rather than prison. CBS Los Angeles.

November 15, 2013

Mark Berndt was the Miramonte Elementary teacher, there since 1979, and by the day he pleaded no contest, to 23 counts of lewd acts on a child involving seven- to ten-year-olds between 2005 and 2011, the district had already settled 61 of more than 120 civil suits over him. Twenty-five years in state prison, and the suits kept coming. NBC Los Angeles.

May 29 and June 19, 2014

In March 2012 a pupil at George De La Torre Jr. Elementary in Wilmington told her mother, and she and several classmates went to the LAPD. The teacher's name was Robert Pimentel. Fourth grade. The District Attorney's office, when it was done, put his conduct with girls of six to ten across a decade, 2002 to 2012, and he pleaded no contest to four felony counts (three of lewd act on a child, the fourth continuous sexual abuse). Twelve years, from Judge James B. Pierce of the Los Angeles County Superior Court. L.A. County District Attorney.

November 21, 2014

During jury selection, L.A. Unified agreed to pay $139.75 million to 81 Miramonte students over Berndt, on top of roughly $30 million it had already paid other Miramonte families. In his statement, the superintendent said the district knew Berndt had gone to extreme lengths to hide what he was doing. ABC7.

December 15, 2015

One of the three Portola families settled: the district agreed to pay them $320,000. One family, one payment, and as far as the public record shows the other two never sued. CBS Los Angeles.

May 18, 2016

Eighty-eight million dollars for 30 more cases from two schools: $58 million for 18 De La Torre families over Pimentel, $30 million for 12 Telfair families over Chapel. A jury had already given two Telfair boys $3 million the previous November. The families' lawyer said the settlements came from evidence the district had ignored warnings, employee reports and parent complaints; the district's statement spoke of the policy changes it had made. ABC7.

June 19, 2019

Scott Silva, a teacher and girls' lacrosse coach at Birmingham Community Charter High School, was sentenced in Van Nuys to nearly 11 years in county jail after a jury convicted him of 25 misdemeanor counts, sixteen of child molestation, six of sexual battery, two of lewd conduct, one of false imprisonment, involving 18 students, 2016 to 2018. Misdemeanors, prosecuted by the City Attorney, and that is how this page describes them. Patch.

September 2019

Five of Silva's former students, now adults, and the families of four who were still minors sued Birmingham Community Charter High School, the Los Angeles Unified School District and Silva. The complaint alleges the students were assaulted on the Birmingham campus in 2018 and that negligence by both the charter school and the district let it happen. The Pearl Post.

January 16, 2020

The Board of Education approved $25 million in settlements at one sitting. Of that, $18.4 million went to nine children from the two elementary schools: $10 million to five more De La Torre students, $8.4 million to four more Telfair students. Their lawyers said the district had known about complaints against both men and left them in classrooms. CBS Los Angeles.

June 1, 2023

The California Supreme Court decided a case L.A. Unified itself brought, S269608, over a Daniel Pearl Magnet High School student's lawsuit. Her complaint, which the court took as true for the ruling, alleges that in February 2014 the district learned an aide at another school was in a relationship with a student, transferred him to her high school instead of firing him, and wrote a false report about how the pair had met; he assaulted her that November. The ruling itself was about the kinds of damages a public school district can be made to pay, and a lawyer will explain what it means for a case against the district. Supreme Court of California.

January 24, 2024

Two more former Miramonte students settled with the district, $3.55 million between them. What their complaints allege: that Berndt's conduct with them ran from about 2004 to 2008, and that complaints from parents, students and teachers had reached Miramonte administrators and district officials going back to the early 1980s, and been ignored. ABC7.

June 3, 2025, and February 17, 2026

First the Board of Education authorized $500 million in judgment obligation bonds to pay sexual-abuse settlements. Then, at its meeting on Tuesday, February 17, 2026, up to $250 million more. The board's own numbers, as of June 2025: about 370 claims received since January 1, 2020, and 81 of them settled or dismissed. The superintendent told the board the district was exhausting the funds available to it to satisfy these cases. EdSource.

April 30, 2026

Nineteen more former Miramonte students, third-, fourth- and fifth-graders in Berndt's classroom between 1988 and 2011, settled with the district for $30.5 million, putting its Berndt payouts past $200 million. Fourteen years after his arrest, their lawyer said, people are still coming forward. Los Angeles Times (via AOL).

We checked this on September 13, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from April 30, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a Los Angeles Unified School District lawsuit

The district. Not the teacher, or not only. Berndt, Chapel and Pimentel answered for themselves in criminal court, and none of them is who the families sued. They sued the Los Angeles Unified School District, the public body that hired these men, assigned them to a classroom, and, the complaints allege, heard about them and kept them there. That is the theory in every one of the cases above, and it is the one the district has paid on again and again without a trial. A teacher answers for what he did. A district that was told, and did nothing, answers for everyone he reached afterward.

L.A. Unified is a public entity, and that changes three things a lawyer will walk you through. There are no punitive damages against a school district in California, ever; that is Government Code 818 and the district has litigated it all the way up. There is no cap on what a jury can award for what was actually done to you. And you do not file a government claim first, whatever year it was; childhood sexual abuse claims go straight to court.

Birmingham is the one exception on the list, and we want to be exact about it, because it has been an independent charter since July 2009: L.A. Unified authorizes the school but does not operate it. The 2019 lawsuit named both, and a lawyer sorts out who answers for what. We have built pages for three of these schools on their own, Miramonte, De La Torre and Birmingham, and if yours is one of them you can read the school's page too. The questions are the same either way.

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 before 2024, Code of Civil Procedure section 340.11, and it is why we ask whether you were born in 1987 or later. If you were, the door is open on age alone, whichever school and whichever year. The nineteen Miramonte students who settled in April 2026 were describing years as far back as 1988.

Because the district is a public body there is one more rule, and here it helps you. You do not have to file a government claim with L.A. Unified first (Government Code 905(m); Code of Civil Procedure 340.11(s)). The six-month claim deadline that trips up other cases against a school district does not apply to childhood sexual abuse, and it hasn't mattered which year it was since 2020. Born before 1987, the fortieth birthday has come or is close, and what remains is the discovery rule plus a showing that the district knew or should have known. Whether that showing can be made on your facts is a lawyer's call, not ours. We won't pretend otherwise.

And if it happened on or after January 1, 2024, there's no deadline at all; that is Code of Civil Procedure 340.1. So, plainly. If you were at an L.A. Unified school any time from the mid-1990s on, you almost certainly still have time, and a kid born in 2005 has decades. What doesn't keep is the rest of it. Who else was in the room. Which parent went to the office. What the file said. That is the part worth one call now.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told a soul. Not a parent, not a spouse, nobody. Most of the people in the cases above carried it for years first.
You liked him. He was the teacher everybody liked, the one with the district since the seventies. That is in the record at two of these schools, and it is part of why it worked.
The police interviewed your class in 2012, or 2013, and then, nothing. A detective's interview isn't a claim. Nobody filed anything for you.
You figure the families who settled got everyone's share. No. Their share was theirs, and the district was back at the table over Miramonte in 2013, then 2014, then 2024, then 2026, each time because more people had come forward.
You got in trouble at school, or after. It has no bearing here.
You live somewhere else now. Half of the class of whatever-year does, and the firm we work with handles California cases wherever you are.

Schools covered

Miramonte Elementary, in the Florence-Firestone part of South Los Angeles, which has its own page at /miramonte-elementary-survivors. George De La Torre Jr. Elementary in Wilmington, also with its own page, /de-la-torre-elementary-survivors. Telfair Avenue Elementary in Pacoima. Gaspar de Portola Middle School in Tarzana. Birmingham Community Charter High School in Lake Balboa, an independent charter the district authorizes (/birmingham-charter-survivors). And every other campus, magnet, continuation school and after-school program that Los Angeles Unified runs, from the Harbor to the north Valley. A different district, somewhere else in L.A. County? The questions still work. Answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue LAUSD for sexual abuse by a teacher?

Hundreds of former students have, and the district has settled most of the cases above rather than take them to a jury. Whether you can depends mostly on when you were born and when it happened, which is what the questions above sort out. Which school matters less than you'd think: the defendant is the same.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Here, nothing. Every case is on contingency, so the lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing, not for the first call and not for the case review either.

How much has LAUSD paid out in sexual abuse settlements so far?

By the Los Angeles Times' count, more than $372 million in judgments and settlements from 2012 through 2024. Since then its board has authorized $750 million in bonds to keep paying. The Miramonte cases alone have passed $200 million. Those are the district's numbers. They are not a promise about anyone's case; no two are alike.

Don't I have to file a claim with the school district before I can sue?

No. California took that step out for childhood sexual abuse claims against public entities, and since 2020 it hasn't mattered which year the abuse happened. Your case goes to court, not to a claims office.

It was the 1990s for me, maybe earlier, so is it too late?

Maybe not. California's clock runs to your 40th birthday, or five years past the day you connected the dots if that comes later, so anyone born in 1987 or after is inside on age alone. Past 40, it turns on the discovery rule and what the district knew, and a lawyer has to weigh that. Miramonte students describing 1988 settled in 2026. One call sorts it.

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.