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Miramonte Elementary School just reopened after a two-day shutdown following the arrest of teacher Mark Berndt who has been charged with 23 counts of committing lewd acts on children. LAUSD District Superintendent John Deasy, ordered the shutdown and a complete replacement of all 150 teachers and staff in response to parental protests about the school’s handling of the situation. While Berndt was arrested only a week ago, school officials knew of the allegations one year prior to his arrest and had him removed from his teaching position while quietly conducting an investigation. In the wake of Berndt’s arrest allegations against three other school staff have surfaced, taking the district by surprise. A second teacher, Martin Springer is also being accused of working in concert with Berndt and of sexually abusing two girls in his classroom. Springer was fired by the LAUSD board yesterday. Also yesterday the lawyer for some victimized students said it appears a female teacher was complicit in the abuse by sending female students to Berndt”s classroom knowing he would feed them semen coated cookies. In a fourth, possibly unrelated incident, the mother of a male Miramonte student made public a 2009 love letter their then-fourth-grader received from a female school aide. At the time she complained to school officials and Sheriff’s deputies who took no action. The Miramonte Elementary School, located in the unincorporated Florence-Firestone neighborhood is one of the poorest in LA County and serves 1400 students, 97 percent of whom are Latino.

Berndt who is 61 years old, had been teaching at Miramonte for 30 years. Complaints against him went as far back as 1990 when he was allegedly seen by students masturbating in his classroom. In 1994 the LA district attorney dismissed reports that Berndt fondled a girl in class due to lack of evidence. And in 2008, parents of a girl in Berndt’s classroom brought up concerns about strange photos taken in Berndt’s classroom but were ignored by the school principal who called it a class project. It was not until a year ago when a drugstore employee contacted police about a roll of film he was processing for Berndt, that investigators started looking into these accusations more seriously. Police found photos of students blindfolded and being spoon fed what turned out to be semen.

The cases of sexual abuse at Miramonte are drawing national attention, coming just months after the explosive scandal at Penn State University against Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky who was found to have raped underage boys. As a result, lawmakers are reexamining mandatory reporting legislation for instances of child molestation. Meanwhile, parents at Miramonte School have planned a protest on Monday to draw attention to the chronic neglect by school officials in handling the situation.

GUESTS: Howard Blume, LA Times Reporter and co-host of Deadline LA with Barbara Osborn which airs Mondays at 3:30 pm on KPFK

Read Howard Blume’s articles here.