Sex, Threats and Punching: Beaumont High's Most Scandalous Year

BEAUMONT, CA — “Have a good day son, don’t sleep with any teachers,” a Beaumont mom would say to her 15-year-old son on mornings before he headed to school. She was only half joking. That’s just the kind of scandalous year it was at Beaumont High School.

“It’s sad that we have to put that label and that worry on our kids,” said the mom, who asked not to be identified to protect her child’s identity. “I know bad happens everywhere and there’s corruption everywhere… but this was just a little too much. … It just seemed like everything took a turn for the worse this year.”

Indeed, scandal after scandal happened in rapid-fire succession.

A student disciplined for not wearing a bra to school set off a social media firestorm.

Reports that a student threatened to shoot up the homecoming pep rally sent shockwaves of fear through the community.

Two teachers made national news after getting charged with having sex with students.

The head football coach got in hot water when video surfaced of him punching a student in the gut.

And that was just in the first few weeks of school.

After Christmas break, the football coach resigned after police recommended criminal charges be filed against him, then, the principal quit. One teacher pleaded guilty to sleeping with a student and another remains in custody. A student sexually abused by a teacher filed a lawsuit against the school district alleging that “red flags” were ignored.

The school year had started innocently enough, and with great hope. Beaumont Unified School District Supt. Terrence Davis boasted that reviving the back-to-school rally for teachers would boost morale, build excitement and set a good tone for focusing on student achievement.

“We started off this year on fire,” Davis said about his hopes for the start of the school year. “On top of that, the programs that we’ve been working on, we have a strong solid staff in place now. We’re in a really good spot, our culture has shifted in terms of focusing on one direction together, not so many people going over here and there.”

Whatever good vibes the rally might have created, they didn’t last. The furious string of controversy, scandal and felony charges overshadowed everything good at Beaumont High — the archery team’s national championship, for instance.

“From an outside perspective, from a media perspective, I could see people going ‘Oh my gosh, wow the sky is falling.’” Davis said. “Underneath that is all the good work that is still going on, but that gets masked by all of these doubts.”

Beaumont High hallways were filled with rumors that spread on social media and trickled home to parents, sources said.

“Overall it was stressful and frustrating,” another mother of a now-former student who didn’t want to be identified told Patch. “I pulled my kid (from the high school). So, that’s what I thought of (everything that happened).”

The same parent who would joke about her son not sleeping with teachers — who also pulled her son from Beaumont High and put him an area charter school — said the boy flourished once out of the school.

"In just three weeks, he raised his two Fs,” she said. “He's working on his own now, so he's able to focus; it's made a difference.”

FALL SEMESTER: ZERO BRA, ONE GUT PUNCH, TWO ARRESTS

In a matter of weeks, Beaumont High became fodder for tabloids around the globe.

The first bit of trouble started with a titillating tweet by sophomore Remy Altuna complaining about having been disciplined for not wearing a bra to school.

It started with Altuna’s reported run-in with a school administrator who allegedly told the girl she was violating the school dress code, and also expressed concern that people would “assume bad things” or “say hurtful things” about her based on her outfit.

“Hearing that really upset me,” Remy told NBC4.

Altuna fought back with a Tweet heard round the world: "BHS is so out of line. Now they want to dress code you for not wearing a bra. My underwear is none of there [sic] business." Soon, Beaumont’s bra-gate spawned a national debate on shaming female students.

“Society is blaming women's attire for being sexually harassed," the girl said in a Cosmopolitan.com interview. "What a woman is wearing does not justify inappropriate behavior from others."

Five weeks later, during preparations for the Beaumont Cougars' homecoming, rumors swirled that a student planned to “shoot up the school” during a pep rally, police said.

Concerned parents contacted Patch as fear spread that the students might not be safe at their event. Beaumont Unified School District officials said they “received numerous calls and heard from a number of students expressing concern” about the rumored threat. Police initiated the “kids with guns” protocol which included increased staffing at the Beaumont campus.

Investigators quickly determined the alleged threat was bogus, calling it a “prank.” Still, police recommended to the court that the alleged prankster be charged with “making criminal threats,” police told Patch. School administrators declined to comment on disciplinary actions against the student, who wasn’t identified publicly.

On Sept. 20, two days before homecoming, Beaumont police arrested English teacher Samantha Ciotta for having sex with a troubled student after a scandalous Snapchat video surfaced, allegedly showing her partying in “panties” with students.

Rumors had been swirling since June 2017 suggesting that Ciotta, a 32-year-old mother of two, may have an inappropriate relationship with a student. Still, her arrest, and graphic details of her encounters with a student included in charging documents shocked the Beaumont community.

The victim’s grandmother told Patch she warned school officials repeatedly about the teacher’s inappropriate extra-curricular relationship with the boy.

"I went to them for over a year," she said. "They allowed him to do everything, the school did… Once the detectives got ahold of [the case], it took them months to arrest her and they pushed me out of the way."

Just days after Ciotta’s arrest, word began to spread of another English teacher’s alleged inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old student. Police discovered a video that showed 38-year-old Christina “Chris” Austin, whom students and parents call “Mr. Austin,” hugging and kissing a female student off-campus, sources said.

Austin was arrested Oct. 2, and charged with two counts of oral copulation on a minor, two counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object and two counts of sexual contacting a minor for sexual offense. She resigned.

After Austin’s arrest, school district officials said they wanted to “reassure parents that our number one priority is the safety and well-being of our students.”

“As professional educators, we hold high standards of conduct, and expect all staff to act with integrity, perform at exemplary levels, and be held accountable for results,” a district statement read.

On Oct. 3, a day after Austin’s arrest, another video surfaced of a Beaumont High staffer inappropriately touching a student. This time it was a punch. The video, reportedly recorded the previous school year, shows a student with his hands above his head as Cougars head football coach Will Martin slugged the boy in the gut.

Martin’s gut punch, which a student told a local TV station was commonplace choice of punishment for the coach, spurred a large controversy around town and nationally. The coach was placed on administrative leave and Beaumont Police recommended that the beloved coach be charged with felony child abuse.

Despite the video evidence against him, some parents lobbied for school leaders to have mercy on Martin.

"This man, that has literally been crucified on a video of a bunch of young men and their coach horseplaying; this theatrical punch... I cannot believe that this man is being put through what he has been put through," Vicki Casner said at an Oct. 24 board meeting.

Through all the controversy, Beaumont High School Principal Christina Pierce did not return calls or emails for comment. The school board also refused to answer questions about the issues, and only referred to a public statement given at that same Oct. 24 meeting.

Steven Hovey, who was the district board president at the time, said he wanted to reassure the community that “more than 99 percent of our teachers, are here for the right reason” and asked parents “not rush to judgment about ‘are we running amok?’”

“The vast majority of people everyday show up and do their job on behalf of children and I’m confident that’s true,” he said at the board meeting. “And the other stuff is unfortunate if it’s true, but it doesn’t represent what people do everyday.”

Some community members, however, said they didn’t feel reassured.

“What is this world coming to?” a Beaumont resident who teaches area youth dance classes asked Patch. “It kind of makes me question their hiring process.”

SPRING SEMESTER: TWO RESIGNATIONS, A LAWSUIT, ONE GUILTY PLEA AND $500,000 BAIL

After winter break, Beaumont High suffered the aftershocks of a hellish first semester that remained the talk of the campus. Their concerns, however, were not addressed by teachers, according to students who talked to anonymously with Patch with their parents’ permission.

“In one of the classes I had, [someone] asked about [Ciotta’s arrest], and [the teacher] said ‘ Oh I’m not going to say anything about that,” a senior told Patch. “It seemed like the teachers were told not comment about it.”

In early January, Coach Martin quit, even though county prosecutors have yet to charge him criminally. School district officials never released the results of their investigation into his use of corporal punishment on students.

Martin told Patch he “loved” the kid he punched and publicly thanked parents who supported him. He did not apologize.

“I appreciate my time there, I appreciate the school district,” Martin said. “I wish them the best and I’m moving on to the next chapter in my life and I’m looking forward to what God has in store.”

As the school year progressed, Beaumont Principal Christina Pierce faced increased scrutiny.
Parents expressed concern about lacking leadership and faculty oversight under Pierce’s leadership. Privately, there was mounting pressure for her to be removed from her post, school sources said.

Still, Supt. Davis never criticized Pierce publicly.

“It’s not just the responsibility of the principal,” Davis told Patch in a March interview. “It’s the responsibility of the community and the environment to be aware of what’s going on around them. And look at those key things and report them when you see something that’s odd.”

Davis said Beaumont teachers undergo state-mandated training aimed to protect students from abuse that was “obviously not enough.” He hired Diane Cranley, a consultant specializing in child sexual abuse-prevention training. Davis said Cranley’s message “in essence is ‘Here are all the signs.’ And as responsible adults, these are all the things that we should be looking for.’

The new training is set to become a permanent fixture in the BUSD school year.

Pierce abruptly resigned in April. Her departure didn’t sit well with some parents.

“Then the fact that Ms. Pierce left in the middle of things … it kind of left a lot of things, in my kid's eyes, a little unresolved,” a parent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her child’s identity, told Patch.

Pierce’s last day was April 27. Three days later, a lawsuit filed against the school district by Ciotta’s teenage victim named Pierce as a defendant and alleges that while the boy was being abused by his English teacher, his guardian and at least one teacher brought allegations to the attention of school administrators, but nothing was done to investigate or intervene.

“BUSD employees and agents failed to notice or take action to put an end to the inappropriate relationship between plaintiff and defendant Ciotta, despite the existence of numerous ‘red flags,’ which should have alerted them to the fact that plaintiff was being groomed for sexual abuse and sexually abused by Ms. Ciotta.”

Pierce now works as Fontana Unified School District’s director of secondary education.

Last month, Ciotta pleaded guilty to three counts of unlawful sex with a minor and was sentenced to four years of probation. She does not need to register as a sex offender thanks to the District Attorney’s office dropping a charge of oral copulation on a minor in her plea deal.

In an exclusive interview with Patch, the 32-year-old said she was "relieved that this all has finally concluded” but did not apologize. And though her state teaching credentials were revoked, she can re-apply to teach children again in the future, according to California Commission on Teaching Credentialing spokesman Joshua Speaks.

Austin, the second teacher accused of sexually abusing a student, remains jailed on $500,000 bond in Rancho Cucamonga and is due back in court on June 21, records show.

The lingering legal issues and criminal proceeding continue to cast a shadow on the future of Beaumont High, but Supt. Davis — who was named as Superintendent of the Year by the Western Riverside County Association of School Managers — says he’s keeping positive about the future.

“How I feel... about the district, is strong. Solid,” Davis said. “And actually I think coming out of [the tumultuous year], [we’re] much stronger than we were going in… there’s still a lot of work to do, a lot of improvements that we can do, and we’re listening. Our ears are open.”

Beaumont High’s first day of school is August 8.