A math teacher’s file opened a fast records door

California teacher – A former KQED reporter used California public-records requests to trace how teacher misconduct complaints move—or stall—between school districts and the state. After years of slow responses and legal battles over releases, the reporter found that records of st

When the former KQED reporter first filed public records requests in 2023, the goal was simple: learn how often teachers keep working with students after schools find misconduct.

She started with the case that had pulled her into the work in the first place. In 2021. she was a new reporter at KQED when former elementary teacher Joseph Brian Houg was sentenced to more than three decades in prison for sexually abusing 10 students. Houg taught at the same San Francisco Bay Area school for more than two decades. The question she couldn’t shake was whether there were warning signs.

She soon found parents on social media saying they had complained to school administrators for years. She also knew that schools could release such complaints if they were substantiated or if teachers were disciplined. Using public records requests that anyone can file, she asked Houg’s school for records. In the end. she received 43 pages within a few months showing that parents had reported Houg to the principal at least four times since 2009.

Those complaints described specific conduct: asking students to strip down to their underwear in his classroom so they could try on costumes for a play he was directing. coming into their changing room. touching boys’ chests or stomachs. and tapping one boy on the butt. The principal had twice warned Houg to stop touching students. But Houg was allowed to keep teaching.

In a deposition, the principal said Houg’s actions crossed professional boundaries but were not reported to her as sexual.

That case didn’t stand alone. Over the next two years. she reported on similar examples of teachers staying in the classroom after complaints of unwanted touching. Another Bay Area elementary school—this one in Benicia—reported a teacher to the state’s licensing body after he resigned due to accusations of misconduct. He was then hired by another school, and his educator license remained in good standing until he was criminally charged. The teacher, who is currently fighting those charges, was later accused of sexually abusing students in 2024.

The pattern raised a sharper set of questions for her. Should teachers have been allowed to keep teaching in new schools after complaints were made?. What would potential employers have known about a teacher’s disciplinary history?. And what should the state have done with information it received—and whether it should have shared it?.

To answer those questions. after she entered journalism school at the University of California. Berkeley in 2023. she teamed up with a classmate to investigate how common it was for teachers to continue working with kids after schools found misconduct. California law bars the teacher licensing agency from releasing disciplinary records to the public. So they requested records from the 300 largest school districts in California.

They asked for complaints of teacher sexual misconduct made to schools in the five previous years. They also asked for any reports sent by schools to the state’s teacher licensing agency, which are required when public school educators are fired or resign due to alleged misconduct.

Dozens of districts responded within two months, but getting the records was slow. California requires public agencies to determine within 10 days whether they have records to disclose. and to release them promptly—yet most dragged their feet. When schools stopped responding, she copied school board members and attorneys on her emails, citing the law. By the time she graduated more than a year after filing the requests, she had received more than 350 complaints. Those complaints fed into a recent investigation with KQED and ProPublica.

One district. Los Angeles Unified—the largest school district in California—still had not released any records pertaining to teacher misconduct cases that it reported to the state. Instead. the district said it would charge her $8. 000. at $100 an hour for 80 hours of work. to “investigate approximately 2. 500 potentially responsive personnel files.”.

The First Amendment Coalition. a California nonprofit that advocates for free speech and government transparency. is representing her in a lawsuit filed in May. The lawsuit argues Los Angeles Unified is violating public records laws through its failure to release documents tied to alleged educator misconduct.

A Los Angeles Unified spokesperson told her in a written statement that the district’s policies balance the public’s right to access records with “responsible stewardship of public resources” and the law.

But district delays weren’t the only barrier. Districts typically notify teachers before releasing complaints so teachers can try to block the documents’ release. The former Benicia teacher who was criminally charged with sexually abusing students in 2024 sued to block the release of complaints made against him at two school districts. The First Amendment Coalition represented her in that case, too, and they won. It took nine months to get the records.

In another case connected to her requests, a court granted an injunction preventing release of the teacher’s records. Even so, the legal filings included details of the allegations, so the nature of the complaint became public anyway.

In the middle of that process, teachers also pushed back in direct, personal ways. At least four teachers called or emailed her asking why she was requesting their disciplinary records. Some wanted to share their side of the story, while others argued their cases weren’t worth her time. One asked her to retract her request, and she did not. Another sent a 1. 700-word email saying the allegations were only partially true and lamented that he did not have the money to defend himself.

Still, she believed the misconduct complaints could hold important truths.

That conviction shaped how she pursued the records. When districts stalled, she kept searching—because the public-records process often sends seekers down multiple paths, and the answers can exist somewhere else.

She found that records of state disciplinary hearings are presumed public when teachers object to their dismissals by school districts or appeal the suspension or revocation of their licenses. Those records live in the Department of General Services. a state agency that houses another agency responsible for convening administrative hearings of public employees.

That channel became decisive. It helped her get fast results in the case of Jason Agan. a San Francisco Bay Area math teacher KQED and ProPublica reported on last month. Agan had been fired for sexually harassing high school students but went on to teach at two more schools. even after an independent panel convened by the Office of Administrative Hearings deemed him “unfit to teach.” Because he asked for an outside hearing after the district moved to fire him. she requested those records.

She received them the next day.

The documents included summaries of testimony from students, administrators and Agan himself at his dismissal hearing. During the hearing. Agan. who has not been accused of a crime. admitted to touching students’ shoulders but denied any sexual motivation. saying he did it to offer support and encouragement. He maintained his teaching license.

The speed changed the way she approached the project. Getting a response from the Department of General Services felt less like navigating a maze and more like finding a “secret portal” to quickly obtain records. So she requested five years’ worth of decisions about other teachers by independent panels from this agency.

She received a “gold mine” of documents in less than a week.

Her experience distilled into a lesson she kept returning to as she built the larger picture of California’s teacher disciplinary system: what seems secret isn’t always so. Sometimes it depends on knowing where to ask—and for what.

KQED and ProPublica, she says, are asking others for help as they continue: if readers have experience with the state’s opaque teacher disciplinary process, they want to hear from you.

California teacher misconduct public records requests Los Angeles Unified Department of General Services Office of Administrative Hearings Joseph Brian Houg Jason Agan First Amendment Coalition KQED ProPublica