Those accusations alone were enough to prompt outrage. But more came: Another teacher at the same school was arrested on charges of sexually abusing children. Then came news reports that two aides at the school had been fired after being accused of abuse, and that one had been sentenced to 15 years in prison. Within days, other allegations surfaced at schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District: A high school music teacher was removed after being accused of showering with students; a third-grade teacher was being investigated for more than a dozen accusations of sexual abuse; an elementary school janitor was arrested and accused of lewd acts against a child. And on Wednesday, a high school softball coach and special education teacher was arrested on charges of sending inappropriate messages to children over the Internet. There is no evidence to suggest that these abuse accusations are connected. But they have put an intense spotlight on the way the district monitors its employees and responds to reports of abuse. The accusations have raised fundamental questions for administrators: How does the sprawling district interact with local law enforcement agencies? Once school officials know about accusations of misconduct, when and how should parents be told? And how does the district track teachers who have been accused of wrongdoing but not convicted? Most of the attention has centered on Miramonte Elementary, a working-class school in South Los Angeles where, the police say, dozens of students were abused over several years. Many of the students are children of Latino immigrants, and some worry that parents were reluctant to report the allegations to the police because of their legal status. Mark Berndt, the teacher accused of photographing students as he abused them, was removed from the classroom last spring, but parents were not told of the accusations or the investigation. He has been charged with 23 counts of lewd acts upon a child. After the arrests of Mr. Berndt and the second teacher, many parents at the school said that they were worried for the safety of their children and that administrators had failed to fulfill their basic responsibility. John Deasy, who became the district’s superintendent a year ago, responded by transferring the entire staff, shutting the school for two days and putting a new teacher and a social worker in each classroom. The rapid removal of a school’s entire staff is unprecedented nationally, several education experts said. The old staff will remain at an unopened school until investigations by the sheriff and school district are completed. “We really need to be erring on the side of caution on behalf of our students,” Mr. Deasy said in an interview. “When something like this emerges, our only choice is to act, and the last thing I wanted was any more surprises.” Mr. Deasy said he was confident he had made the right decision. “When I told the parents about the decision, I stood in front of a room with thousands of people applauding,” he said. The school district, the nation’s second largest, covers the city of Los Angeles and all or parts of several neighboring communities and unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County, and as a result, it must work with several law enforcement agencies. Mr. Deasy said the district was trying to sort out each agency’s policies. In Mr. Berndt’s case, school district officials said, the sheriff’s department told them not to speak to any staff members or parents about the matter until the inquiry was completed. On Wednesday, the state agency that accredits teachers sent Mr. Deasy a letter saying he should have informed it when Mr. Berndt was removed from the district last spring, rather than waiting for his arrest, to ensure that he could not be hired in another district.
