Editor’s Note: This story, which was pitched to The Desert Sun because of its relevancy for Riverside County public school families, was produced with support from the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley.
Over the span of about three years at Tahquitz High School in Hemet, teacher Jared Rutkoff was repeatedly accused of misconduct, records show. In 2021, the district determined Rutkoff had groomed students and sent a recent graduate sexually suggestive or explicit messages, including a picture of his genitals.
Hemet Unified School District directed him to serve a five-day suspension, the records show.
In 2023, several students complained about Rutkoff’s behavior at school, prompting another investigation that found Rutkoff addressed students with language like “bitch” and “whore,” and made inappropriate comments about women and Asian people during class.
In a phone interview, Rutkoff denied allegations of grooming or making derogatory statements, and declined to comment on the inappropriate messages.
Rutkoff resigned in 2024. But that was not the end of his teaching career. In his resignation agreement, Hemet Unified agreed to only provide prospective employers basic details, like his dates of employment and salary. Rutkoff, in turn, promised to “make all efforts to secure employment with another employer at the earliest possible date.”
By the time Hemet Unified reported him to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, Rutkoff already had a job at a middle school in El Cajon.
Rutkoff’s case raises questions around disciplinary processes for teachers, resignation agreements, and vetting for K-12 educators. Advocates for students have long raised concern about schools “passing the trash,” the practice where teachers accused of misconduct resign only to be hired at other schools. Experts say too often teachers who resign do so with agreements promising confidentiality or neutral references, like the agreement Rutkoff signed.
Hemet Unified superintendent Christi Barrett declined to comment, citing confidential personnel matters.
“There should be a way of tracking people who are moving from school to school — or who have reports, suspensions, or some kind of infraction for boundary crossings and safety for students,” said Charol Shakeshaft, distinguished professor emerita at Virginia Commonwealth University, who researches sexual misconduct in schools. “Most of the research tells us they’re not going to reform. They’re not going to get better in the next district.”
Hemet Unified has also faced scrutiny over its own vetting. Seven former students are suing Hemet Unified, alleging the district was negligent in hiring Miguel Chavez. In 2018, The Desert Sun found Chavez had previously been investigated for inappropriate behavior with a student while teaching at Palm Springs Unified School District.
In March 2018, Hemet High School reprimanded Chavez after a student alleged he grabbed and squeezed her neck as well as grabbed her face while looking her straight in the eye without saying anything, records show. He was told to refrain from physical contact with students and take a course on boundary invasion. By August that year, he was charged with multiple sex crimes, and later pleaded guilty to oral copulation of a minor and penetration of a minor with a foreign object.
‘He had no fear’
The investigation into Rutkoff’s behavior was prompted by allegations posted about him on social media in the summer of 2020.
Tahquitz High alum Halle Howe posted claims against Rutkoff on Twitter, accusing him of inviting a student to his home.
“[Rutkoff] was very vocal about not giving a damn,” Howe remembered. ”He felt entitled. He had no fear.”
After an investigation, Assistant Superintendent Derek Jindra determined that Rutkoff had groomed two students “with the intent to engage in a sexual relationship with them almost immediately after they graduated from high school.”
One of those former students, Crista Diaz, said she grew close to Rutkoff her senior year. She said she was lonely and depressed, and Rutkoff gave her the attention she wasn’t getting elsewhere. Rutkoff was her favorite teacher.
“He wanted me to trust him,” Diaz said. “He wanted me to think that at the end of the day, he had the best intentions for me.”
Diaz alleged Rutkoff made flirtatious comments, stared at her breasts and invited her to his home in 2016, after she graduated but was still 17 years old.
When reached for comment, Rutkoff denied the allegations.
Rutkoff sent inappropriate and sexually suggestive messages to a second student soon after she graduated, according to the district’s statement of charges.
One screenshot obtained from district records shows Rutkoff wrote the former student in June 2017, “I have thoughts but I can’t share them” and “I would [expletive]the [expletive] out of you…Right now if you were here.”
Rutkoff said the messages were “incomplete” and “doctored,” and claimed the former student extorted him. He declined to provide details or evidence of the alleged extortion.
“The District believes that you have engaged in grooming of minor students, for the purpose of pursuing sexual relations with them, and that this is an inherent defect of your personal character that is not correctable,” wrote Assistant Superintendent Jindra in a notice of unprofessional conduct.
Jindra did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Limitations on electronic communication, training on grooming
Jindra instructed Rutkoff he needed to “earn back the trust and respect” of his students. Rutkoff would be required to meet with the principal every week during the 2021-22 school year, only communicate with students on campus during the school day, and take training on the “danger of grooming.”
Had the suspension been for more than 10 days, the district would have been required to report Rutkoff to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, the state agency that can revoke teaching credentials.
Howe, the student whose tweet helped set off the initial investigation into Rutkoff’s alleged behavior, said the school district’s response was laughable.
“It is so easy to get expelled from this school as a child. And it is just so laughable to me that they gave him a verbal smack on the hand,” Howe said. “This is really the standard.”
Hemet Unified also reported the allegations to police, records show. The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said in a written statement that their office did not file charges as the statute of limitations had passed.
By 2023, additional female students complained about Rutkoff. One student alleged that Rutkoff took a classmate’s shoe off during class and told her to “beg for it louder.”
In a phone interview, Rutkoff denied the allegations and called the investigation a “joke.”
By February 2024, Rutkoff agreed to resign, and months later he accepted a job teaching at Cajon Valley Middle School.
Cajon Valley Union School District Assistant Superintendent Michelle Hayes declined to answer questions specifically about Rutkoff’s hiring, but said she was unaware of the misconduct allegations when Rutkoff got the job.
Days after The Desert Sun shared records from Hemet Unified with Hayes, she said Rutkoff was no longer teaching in Cajon Valley. Hayes noted that no allegations had been made against Rutkoff while employed in her district.
Calls for a standardized system to protect students
A proposed California law, Senate Bill 848, aims to create a standardized system for preventing abuse in schools. It would require schools to update their comprehensive school safety plans, mandate training on how to combat and recognize signs of grooming, and create a database of school employee misconduct for classified employees. The measure, which would also expand mandated reporting requirements, was introduced in response to an investigative report in Business Insider that documented decades of sexual misconduct at Rosemead High in Los Angeles County.
The Riverside County Office of Education is backing the measure. Craig Petinak, a spokesperson for the office, said the agency does not have jurisdiction over or comment on the specific cases in this article. But he said the state measure would promote “policies that provide safe learning environments for all students.”
“Our office is committed to supporting local districts in implementing practices that protect students, ensure thorough screening processes, and address misconduct when it occurs,” Petinak said.
Some changes designed to improve screening are already underway. In January, Assembly Bill 2534 went into effect, requiring schools hiring for certificated positions to inquire with previous employing districts about “credible complaints of, substantiated investigations into, or discipline for, egregious misconduct” that were required to be reported to the CTC. The law also requires those previous employers to provide a copy of all relevant information.
But some organizations of school leaders, including the Association of California School Administrators and the Small School Districts’ Association, say the measure still allows teachers to choose what work history information they include.
“There’s no real kind of teeth behind it,” said Dorothy Johnson, legislative advocate with the Association of California School Administrators. “There’s no penalty if a teacher fails to provide information about a prior employer.”
Johnson said that schools are dealing with staffing shortages, and reaching out to all past employing districts further strains resources. If schools could get information about reports of misconduct from the CTC, she said, it would streamline the process.
‘Straddling the line, the limits’
More than a year after he was reported to the CTC, Rutkoff’s teaching credential remains active.
A spokesperson for the CTC, Anita Fitzhugh, declined to comment on specific cases, citing confidentiality laws. Fitzhugh said the agency is committed to protecting the public safety of California schoolchildren as well as ensuring due process for educators.
As for Diaz, she is now a mother pursuing a career in teaching. She says she feels a responsibility to speak out about her former teacher — and adults who push boundaries with children.
“They’re always straddling the line, the limits,” Diaz said. “And nobody is ever holding them accountable.”
This story includes additional reporting by Luiz H. Monticelli of the IRP. This article was also reported with the support of the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
(This story was updated to fix a typo.)
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Hemet Unified found he made inappropriate comments about students. So, he moved districts
Reporting by Holly McDede, Special to The Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
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