A woman has reached a tentative settlement in her negligence lawsuit against the Inglewood Unified School District, in which she alleged she was sexually abused and impregnated by a teacher.
The woman is identified only as Jane Doe D.F. in the Torrance Superior Court lawsuit. On Thursday, her attorney filed court papers with Judge David Reinert notifying him of a “conditional” resolution in the case with the expectation a request for dismissal will be brought by Jan. 30.
No terms were revealed. It was not immediately clear whether final approval of the settlement is up to the Board of Education.
In their previous court papers, attorneys for the IUSD stated that the district had “adequately trained, supervised and educated, and did not know and had no reason to believe (the teacher) would abuse plaintiff, was abusing plaintiff or had abused plaintiff.”
According to the suit, Doe was a special education student in the IUSD in 2008-10 and was designated as such because she could not focus and sit still to learn and she had also demonstrated anger problems. Doe was given an individualized education program that met her goals and needs.
Doe was transferred in March 2008 to Inglewood High School for the spring semester of her 10th grade year and was placed in four special education classes, according to the suit, which further stated that Doe’s alleged abuser was responsible for her individualized education program.
The teacher, who knew Doe already had one son and that the child’s father was absent from the student’s life, began grooming her for sexual abuse in 2008-09 when she was in the 11th grade, the suit stated. Doe often skipped classes to be in the teacher’s classroom, the suit alleged.
At times, the teacher allegedly gave Doe his car keys so she could wait for him in his car after school and when they reached his home he sexually abused her for the remainder of her tenure as an IUSD student through graduation, telling Doe not to tell anyone about their relationship, the suit further alleged.
The teacher allegedly planned Doe’s pregnancy because he wanted a son and she gave birth to a child in September 2010, the suit stated.
Despite multiple absences from her classes, there is no evidence that the district notified her family, that she was brought before a student attendance review team or that an attendance contract was ever developed for her, nor were any steps taken to address her chronic truancy, according to the suit.