San Luis Obispo County’s largest school district faces three lawsuits filed within the last six months alleging child sexual abuse, assault, and negligence at the hands of its employees.
A Mesa Middle School student, a Grover Beach Elementary School student, their guardians, and two former students at Dana Elementary School filed separate complaints against the Lucia Mar Unified School District for reportedly neglecting to take action when three instructors allegedly harmed those students in different ways.
The Lucia Mar school board also capped off 2025 by unanimously agreeing at its Dec. 16 meeting to settle two cases involving students. The district will pay roughly $50,000 to each of the students, including attorney fees.
It’s unclear if the two settled cases are connected to the active lawsuits from the Mesa Middle, Grover Beach Elementary, and Dana Elementary schools’ students.
“The well-being of our students and staff is a top priority for Lucia Mar,” district spokesperson Amy Jacobs said. “School districts across California are experiencing a marked increase in claims and litigation. Because these matters involve pending or anticipated legal action, the district cannot comment on specifics at this time.”
Reformed state laws around sexual assault led to a surge in lawsuits throughout California.
In 2019, the Legislature unanimously passed Assembly Bill 218, which extended the statute of limitations to file a child sexual assault lawsuit from age 26 to age 40; extended the statute of limitations for survivors older than 40 to within five years of when survivors reasonably should have discovered repressed memories of assault; and enabled survivors whose statutes of limitations had expired to file lawsuits by Dec. 31, 2022.
In 2023, the Legislature also passed AB 452, which altogether removes the statute of limitations on all childhood sexual assault claims filed after Jan. 1, 2024.
According to a Cal Matters investigation in 2025, the new laws resulted in a flurry of payouts from school districts to survivors. The Carpinteria Unified School District with its $42 million budget in neighboring Santa Barbara County is facing financial collapse due to lawsuits settling for $5 million to $10 million each.
Overall claims against schools total nearly $3 billion, Cal Matters reported.
Two unnamed women, now 37, sued Lucia Mar, claiming that their former Dana Elementary teacher Alexander Polosjuk sexually abused and molested them between 1997 and 1998 when they were children.
“Childhood sexual trauma often takes many years to process, and most survivors never come forward at all,” said Simona Danesh, a partner at Slater Slater Schulman LLP who represents the two women. “For those who do, it typically takes decades to find the strength to confront such painful memories. Recent changes in the law were made to reflect this well-established reality.”
Danesh added that the alleged victims experienced lifelong harm because their teacher assaulted them.
“Keeping children safe includes the training and rigorous supervision of all personnel who interact with kids and full compliance with California’s mandated‑reporting laws,” she told New Times. “If district leadership and staff were aware in the 1990s, the only appropriate response was immediate removal from student contact, prompt reporting to law enforcement, timely notification to families, and an independent investigation.”
The complaint alleges that Polosjuk abused the two girls on at least 12 occasions combined.
The women claimed that despite other students also complaining that Polosjuk had fondled them and given nonconsensual hugs, the district didn’t supervise his interactions with students, didn’t report him to law enforcement or a child protective agency, and didn’t train teachers and staff to create a safe environment and report inappropriate behavior.
“Defendants failed to take reasonable steps and implement reasonable safeguards to avoid acts of unlawful sexual conduct by Polosjuk, and, upon information and belief, actually undertook a concerted effort to cover up the childhood sexual abuse,” the complaint said.
The complaint also stated that Polosjuk was ultimately arrested and convicted around 1998 for acts of child sexual abuse. Lucia Mar responded to the complaint with a general denial on Dec. 23, rejecting all the allegations.
Polosjuk, 72, is listed in California’s registered sex offender database under continuous sexual abuse of child. According to the database, he was convicted in 1998 and released in 2003. He was last reported to be living in Santa Cruz.
New Tech and Nipomo high schools’ physical education teacher and union president of the Lucia Mar Unified Teachers Association Cody King told New Times he remembers kids discussing Polosjuk’s behavior when he was a 12-year-old at Dana Elementary in 1998.
“I don’t remember it in the news or anything, … just knowing that he was no longer in school and the rumors at the time that turned out to be true,” he said.
Lucia Mar is also facing a lawsuit filed in June 2025 by a Mesa Middle School student and her guardian against physical education teacher Karli Nichols.
The complaint alleged that in September 2024, Nichols willfully ignored a doctor’s note excusing the student from all physical activity. The student, while practicing throwing a flying disk, heard her knee pop and fell. She allegedly suffered permanent injuries.
In November 2025, a Grover Beach Elementary student with disabilities and her mother sued the district and paraprofessional Michael Rios, alleging a physical altercation in February between him and the student.
According to the lawsuit, Rios forcibly removed the student for playing outside the cafeteria after lunch.
“In an attempt to stop her, Rios grabbed her upper arm between her elbow and shoulder,” the complaint said. “Rios then grabbed the back of her shirt collar and pulled backwards, causing the fabric to tighten round her neck, which choked her and restricted her breathing. Plaintiff, in pain, gasped for air.”
The incident allegedly worsened the student’s emotional and psychological condition, leading to a severe fear of school, panic attacks, and hospitalization for mental health treatment.
The complaint alleged that Lucia Mar didn’t immediately inform the student’s parent and failed to disclose that a behavioral emergency report and a video of the incident existed. A behavioral emergency report is a mandatory document in California schools that notes incidents involving significant student behavior, including the use of emergency interventions like physical restraint.
The parent allegedly only learned about the incident when Grover Beach police called her to follow up on a suspected child abuse report. Despite repeated requests, the school district allegedly delayed holding an emergency 504 meeting—an urgent discussion about a child’s unique disability-related needs.
The district also failed to respond to a formal government claim within the required 45-day window, according to the lawsuit, effectively rejecting it by default.
Lucia Mar has faced similar lawsuits in the past.
In 2022, the school district agreed to pay $10 million to settle a lawsuit alleging negligence after bus driver David Lamb was convicted of molesting a 9-year-old girl several times over five months in 2017.
Teachers Association President King told New Times that the union isn’t privy to the district’s deliberations around litigation. Details surrounding procedures that supposedly weren’t followed and diligence that wasn’t performed, he said, are important to know about because it could highlight systemic issues that need fixing.
“Because everything’s done in closed session at board meetings and the confidentiality, you don’t hear about these or you don’t know the outcome when there’s something that’s brought before the board,” King said. “They’ll say it’s resolved but not that there was liability or an amount that was paid.” ∆
Reach Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal at brajagopal@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Jan 15-22, 2026.