Santa Ana Unified claims records of text allegation a teacher showed students a lewd photo don't exist

Two Santa Ana Unified School District employees traded text messages on Sept. 17, 2023 about a controversy surrounding new ethnic studies courses at the district when, in passing, one those employees mentioned a serious allegation against a teacher.
'I've been warning [redacted] about him,' the employee texted. 'She even knows he showed a d--k pic to a room full of middle schoolers on accident cause he wasn't teaching.'
The brief exchange appeared in batch of evidence the district turned over to attorneys for Jewish advocacy groups during a lawsuit that alleged district officials developed 'antisemitic' ethnic studies courses in secret.
Supt. Jerry Almendarez, who is set to retire on July 31, did not respond to a TimesOC request for comment about whether the alleged lewd photo incident happened, led to an investigation, what the outcome of a probe was or if the teacher remains employed by the district, as implied by the text message exchange.
Not subject to a protective court order at the time, attorneys involved in the lawsuit over the ethnic studies courses voluntarily 'redacted the names and personally identifiable information of SAUSD employees' anyway before filing all documents obtained as evidence.
In December 2023, the copious records were refiled without redaction at a judge's request, but under seal, as the district wished 'to keep confidential the names of individuals.'
TimesOC sent the district a request for the unredacted records on Sept. 6, 2024, asking for text messages concerning ethnic studies from September 2023 alone.
Months passed without any official follow up from the district, save for a same day request to refine search terms for the information technology department.
A district spokesman claimed in a phone conversation that an IT department swamped with records requests was to blame for the delay but at no time did the district communicate a need for a 14-day extension under the California Public Records Act.
The district also didn't provide a response until 152 days after TimesOC sent an email asking for text messages to be disclosed.
'Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding to your public records request,' wrote Wanda Cherif, an administrative secretary in the district's communications office. 'After reviewing all emails by our IT department, it was determined that we do not have any responsive records relating to your request.'
When reminded that the request asked for text messages — not emails — Cherif explained that no such records existed, either.
In court documents, no fewer than 88 text messages across three separate conversations appear from September 2023 alone.
But the district turned none of those documents over to TimesOC and did not respond to screenshots shared of the specific Sept. 17, 2023 text message conversation about the allegation. Jerry Almendarez, set to retire as Santa Ana Unified's superintendent this summer, dodged questions about the text messages.
'If the district had the records and clearly delivered them in discovery, then they can't claim they don't have them,' said David Loy, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition. 'They would have to either turn them over, possibly redact them or claim that there's an applicable exemption.'
Pending litigation would not have been grounds for exemption, as it only covers documents prepared for use in a lawsuit, not existing records that are introduced as evidence in a case.
In fact, the presence of a litigation hold in the case is another reason documents should have been identified and turned over, Loy further argued.
'It just further confirms that they really should have been in possessions of these records,' he said.
In February, the district settled the suit brought by the coalition of Jewish groups.
A month before the settlement, TimesOC asked the district for a copy of all record requests it had received since last September to asses how inundated it may be. More than 100 days passed before the district turned over a spreadsheet in May.
Not counting TimesOC's own request, the district received 20 records requests in the five months between the beginning of September and the end of January.
Some inquiries — requests for proposals, a decade's worth of student suspension data, attendance data, documents between district officials and Jewish advocacy groups — were fulfilled in less than two months' time.
Only four of the 20 requests in that time frame remain open; a fifth request by a Los Angeles Times reporter was fulfilled in a timely manner after January. A list of IT staff asked for and provided by the district shows 28 people employed in the department with the majority of them earning six-figure salaries.
'It's egregious,' Loy said. 'What was originally asked for was a pretty defined request for a limited set of records in a limited time frame.'

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