How a southern California high-school shielded a beloved teacher who groomed students

• Three former Rosemead High students confirmed they had sexual relationships with Eric Burgess, the school's "Golden Boy."
• School officials repeatedly missed opportunities to investigate allegations against Burgess, allowing his behavior to continue for more than 20 years.
• The district also obstructed Insider's reporting on Burgess, repeatedly denying its public records requests.

"Our Library Clerk sent this to me... it was a request from Matt Drange re: Eric Burgess," Rosemead principal Brian Bristol wrote in an email to his boss. "How would you like us to handle this?"

I knew that getting documents for my investigation into my alma mater's handling of teachers accused of sexual misconduct would be difficult. But I didn't expect that requesting images of old yearbooks – copies of which can easily be found at the local library — would prompt a frantic response, including the principal emailing the superintendent and instructing campus staff to stop returning my phone calls.

The more I dug into Rosemead High's reckoning with the behavior of its one-time "Golden Boy," English and journalism teacher Eric Burgess, the more school officials dug in their heels to obstruct my reporting. Word got around that I was calling teachers across campus in the summer of 2019, shortly after Burgess was suspended while district officials investigated his relationship with a former student. Many employees on campus told me they were instructed not to speak with me.

Read more: He was my high school journalism teacher. Then I investigated his relationships with teenage girls.

A few months earlier, after officials obtained a series of sexually explicit messages Burgess exchanged with the former student, I asked district superintendent Edward Zuniga whether he thought the district had done all it could to keep students safe, among other questions. Zuniga tapped an outside PR firm, emails show, to craft a canned response: 

"This is a confidential personnel matter and the district does not comment on confidential personnel matters," Zuniga told me.

The secrecy around Burgess intensified once the district brought in an outside investigator, Lisa Strachan, to interview employees and alumni. Strachan's firm has come under scrutiny in the past for its tactics in sexual abuse investigations in other southern California schools, which prompted at least one person she contacted to ignore her calls. Responses to my records requests, meanwhile, grew increasingly creative, as the outside lawyers hired by the district began to stretch legal exemptions as they saw fit.

Attorneys who specialize in public records access and who reviewed the denials the school district sent me said the secrecy was egregious. Among the records the district either denied me access to or claimed it didn't possess were disciplinary records from Burgess' personnel file — including records from the first time he was suspended, following a tip that he was dating a student — as well as any portion of the district's 2019 investigation, which ultimately led to Burgess' resignation. Even after he'd been pushed out, lawyers for the school district argued "the public's interest is furthered by maintaining the confidentiality" of Burgess' records. Burgess' teaching credential was revoked by California's disciplinary commission in 2021.

Other instances of abusive behavior have surfaced in the school district in recent years. In 2019, a Rosemead track coach went to jail for three years after pleading no contest to lewd acts with a student. The district paid $2 million to settle a case brought by another student at a nearby school after a teacher admitted to molesting her. Other students filed a lawsuit shortly after, accusing the district of failing to protect them from teachers who preyed on teenage girls.

In Burgess' case, despite numerous red flags, school officials repeatedly missed opportunities to put a stop to his behavior. After they finally took action, school officials willingly agreed to remain silent about the reasons Burgess lost his job as part of the settlement agreement he signed in December 2019.

Carly Sanchez, an attorney who specializes in sexual abuse lawsuits involving children, was stunned when I briefed her on the agreement. In other cases of teacher misconduct she has reviewed, Sanchez said that school officials "had to say that a teacher 'violated these specific policies.' There's generally very specific language about references, as well."

It's unclear what recommendation, if any, district officials made when they referred Burgess' settlement to the state disciplinary commission. I was denied access to that, too.

Have a story tip? Connect with Matt via email, at mdrange[at]insider[dot]com, or by phone, at +1 (626) 233-1063.