SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – The Tamalpais Union High School District has been ordered by a Marin County court to pay $10 million to a former student who claims a tennis coach repeatedly sexually assaulted him nearly twenty years ago.
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The jury on Monday found that the school district failed to adequately report the alleged incidents to law enforcement and kept the coach on the payroll instead. The jury voted unanimously on the monetary damages and voted 10-2 that the school district was negligent, according to the Marin Independent Journal.
The former student, identified as 36-year-old Alex Harrison after he spoke publicly to the New York Times last year, attended Tamalpais High School from 2000 to 2004. He played on the school tennis team under former coach Normandie Burgos, who began grooming him as a freshmen, which led to several incidents of sexual assault.
In addition, Harrison claimed school and district leaders failed to report several cases of sexual assault involving other students in the years prior to his own encounters with Burgos.
Harrison's attorneys argued successfully that Tamalpais administrators knew of at least some of the cases, but only let Burgos off with a warning.
Burgos is currently serving a 255 year sentence for sexual assaulting multiple students at a private tennis program in Richmond.
Mark Dale, founder of "Families with Safer Schools" — a Marin-based organization which aims to protect K-12 students' safety — said Tamaplais administrators made the same mistake that many other high school and college administrators have.
"That is the problem that I see happen over and over with cases," Dale told KCBS Radio. "Administrators believe 'keep it in house' or 'keep it inside the district.' They think they’re managing or handling it. But then more students are put in harm's way."
"Almost any adult, any administrator, any campus is a mandated reporter and by law, they must report if they've become aware of sexual abuse, or any type of abuse around our children," he added.
The Tamalpais Union High School District told KCBS Radio in a statement that the district is reviewing the verdict and is discussing the outcome with legal counsel to determine their response.
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