Parents say district delayed communication after alleged classroom abuse investigation at Santa Rosa Academic Academy

Parents of students at Santa Rosa Academic Academy told the Atascadero Unified School District Board on March 18 that they remain without clear answers after police and child-welfare personnel responded to a classroom incident last October.

Sarah Sullivan, who spoke with Lindsay Olivera, laid out a timeline that began Oct. 16, 2024, when the Atascadero Police Department responded to a report from Santa Rosa Academic Academy. "The teacher was removed from the classroom and placed at a desktop assist through the end of the year, no longer working with children," Sullivan said, and she added that it has been "a hundred and 52 days that the Atascadero Police Department took the teacher out of the classroom to be questioned." Sullivan told trustees she submitted repeated requests for information and was told the investigation remained confidential and that the district was limited in what it could disclose.

Sullivan and Olivera said families were not notified immediately and described repeated delays in communication. Sullivan quoted district emails acknowledging reports to child-welfare services and law enforcement but said districtwide family notice took 4½ days after the police were called. She said parents received a later message that a long-term substitute had been placed and that further community meetings to "rebuild trust" had not produced specifics about the investigation.

The parents pressed district leaders for two items they said are still missing: a plain-flow flowchart explaining how the district responds to suspected abuse reports, and a candid accounting of where the investigatory process failed so families can understand what protections will be put in place. "Provide families with information about what actually happened to their students," Sullivan said. "Trust cannot be rebuilt without naming the incidents that transpired and moving forward." Lindsay Olivera added that several children in the classroom may not be able to communicate what happened to them and that parents need transparent findings to support their children.

District staff present told the board they had made reports to child-welfare services and notified law enforcement, and that some communications were limited by privacy rules; Superintendent Tom Butler later said the district had made resources available to support students and staff and offered condolences to the family after a separate student death discussed later in the meeting.

Ending: Parents asked the board to publish clearer procedures and to resume promised follow-up meetings with families; trustees said they would continue to review the matter while citing investigatory privacy constraints.