The Redlands Unified School District has made progress addressing student sexual abuse by expanding services, staff and training, but has failed to respond to and resolve a large number of complaints in timely fashion over the past year, the state attorney general’s office has concluded.
The findings came in the first compliance report issued by the Department of Justice since it entered into an agreement with the district in May 2024 following a 19-month civil rights investigation into years of failed responses to sexual misconduct.
The DOJ concluded the district was “substantially compliant” on 61 of the 63 state-mandated provisions of the agreement, but noted that from June 2024 to June 2025, 54% of 180 open complaints alleging student sexual harassment, assault or abuse remained unresolved and were past the 60-day investigation deadline.
The report, dated Wednesday, June 4, said the Office of Attorney General “continues to be seriously concerned with these 98 open cases that are unresolved as of May 19, 2025. While OAG recognizes that the District has made a concerted effort to promptly respond (to) and resolve complaints in an expeditious manner, the District is out of compliance with respect to the timeliness of resolutions.”
In June 2024, the Justice Department announced that Redlands Unified “systemically violated laws” in place to protect against and address complaints related to sexual assault, harassment and abuse, including Title IX, the Child Abuse and Neglect and Reporting Act and parts of the California Education Code.
To resolve the case, the Justice Department entered into a stipulated agreement compelling the district to implement “wide-ranging reforms” so that it could “promptly prevent, stop, and remedy sexual harassment, assault, or abuse on its campuses.” Under the agreement, the state will monitor the district for five years, and has provided a list of provisions for the district to meet, providing annual compliance reports to address the district’s progress and where it is falling short.
In a letter addressed to district staff on Thursday, June 5, Superintendent Juan Cabral noted Redlands Unified was found to be “substantially compliant” on nearly all of the DOJ’s markers, but added that it “faced challenges in resolving a high volume of formal complaints.”
“We understand that each case represents a student or family navigating a difficult experience,” Cabral said in the letter. “We are working diligently to ensure that responses are timely, thorough, and respectful of all individuals involved.”
In the past year, the district has taken steps to expand staffing and training, adopt new policies and engage the community to comply with the terms of its agreement with the state. According to the Justice Department and Cabral’s letter to staff, the district has, among other things:
- Appointed an assistant superintendent of compliance and a Title IX coordinator.
- Updated and adopted new policies on sexual harassment prevention, staff conduct, and student safety.
- Trained staff on investigation procedures, including special considerations and legal obligations for students with disabilities.
- Launched a districtwide tracking system that gives students and families easier access to file reports and track their complaints.
- Created a system to ensure that substitute teachers with substantiated complaints against them were not rehired.
- Provided training for students, staff and families on their rights and responsibilities, and created age-appropriate Title IX videos for students across all grade levels.
Title IX is a federal law enacted in 1972 that protects individuals from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.
The Justice Department noted the district tasked the new assistant superintendent of compliance with monitoring and analyzing any trends in complaints received, informing the superintendent of them, and directing staff to take appropriate corrective action in response.
Now, the district will move forward to address its deficiencies noted in the state’s compliance report.
Cabral said the district is expanding its compliance team and refining its investigative processes to ensure all cases are resolved “promptly, fairly, and with appropriate documentation and follow-up.”
In the coming year, the superintendent said, the district will:
- Add investigators and support staff to reduce case backlogs.
- Improve how the district follows through on every report, from initial filing to resolution.
- Conduct more community outreach so families know how to report concerns and what to expect in return.
- Monitor progress through surveys, advisory meetings, and public updates.
Since 2016, Redlands Unified has paid more than $41.3 million to settle sexual abuse lawsuits against the district and former teachers, several of whom have been convicted and sentenced to jail or prison.
Attorney Morgan Stewart, who has represented former Redlands Unified students in the bulk of the sexual abuse lawsuits settled over the last decade, was traveling out of the country and said Friday he had not yet reviewed the compliance order.
On May 20, Stewart’s Irvine law firm, Manly, Stewart, & Finaldi, announced it had filed a lawsuit against the district on behalf of another alleged victim of former Citrus Valley High School teacher Laura Whitehurst. The lawsuit alleges Whitehurst had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old male student at Redlands High School from 2007 through 2008, when she taught at the school, according to a news release. The release also noted that police reports indicate complaints about Whitehurst molesting minors began soon after she was hired by the district in 2006 and continued until the time of her arrest in 2013.
Whitehurst was convicted in August 2018 of having unlawful sex with three students, including one of her students at Citrus Valley High School whose child she bore.
Stewart has referred to Redlands Unified as the “poster child” for student sexual abuse, noting that more than 20 teachers and administrators have been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with their students over the last 10 years.
A two-year investigation, started in 2018 by the Southern California News Group, found that Redlands Unified, for decades, frequently failed to report to authorities teachers and other employees accused of grooming and sexually abusing students. The investigation also showed that, in some cases, district officials thwarted police investigations of sexual abuse cases.
The Justice Department released findings from its investigation a month after the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights sent a damning 20-page letter to Cabral with its findings from a four-year investigation, which concluded that the district, among other things, failed to respond properly to 74% of 35 reports of sexual abuse against students from 2017 to 2020.
Sabine Robertson-Phillips, the district’s assistant superintendent of human resources and a central figure in the district’s sex abuse scandal, was placed on paid leave the day the OCR released its report and has remained on leave ever since. In April, the school board unanimously approved her resignation and a settlement agreement, under which she will remain on leave until she officially resigns and retires effective Sept. 1.
