A California school failed to protect a 14-year-old student from being groomed and sexually assaulted by one of their teachers — leaving him traumatized, his family alleges in a new suit.
The convicted sex offender, Michelle Christine Solis, 46, was a teacher at Sycamore Middle School, which is where the illicit encounter with her student took place on his graduation day.
New allegations in the lawsuit, obtained by the Sacramento Bee, say Solis would organize meet-ups with the student – getting him a pass for recess and for lunch – under the guise of helping him with his homework so that the two could spend time alone.
Solis, a mom of two, “friended” the student on Instagram and promptly slid into his DMs – chatting him up for weeks before their first encounter, according to the suit.
Then on his eighth-grade graduation day, the teacher brought the student into a classroom, locked the door, and coerced him into sex. She then sent him photos of their encounter with instructions to delete the communications, according to the Butte County District Attorney’s Office.
After nude photos of the teacher spread through the small town of Gridley, 50 miles north of Sacramento, investigators looked at the boy’s phone and found messages with the teacher and two nude photos.
The lawsuit claims that the Gridley Unified School District failed to properly monitor their teacher’s behavior nor did they train other teachers to properly detect the grooming behavior.
The suit seeks “general damages and other non-economic relief” for physical, mental and emotional injuries sustained by the student.
Mark Boskovich, an attorney for the boy, told the local outlet that the sex crime has had a lasting effect on him.
“He is back in the classroom where he had no control of the situation and felt helpless,” Boskovich told the Bee.
Solis, who had a 20-year teaching career, was sentenced to four years in prison back in July and will need to register as a sex offender. She is serving her sentence at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla.
If you have been sexually assaulted and live in New York, you can call 1-800-942-6906 for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the state, you can dial the 24/7 National Sexual Assault hotline at 1-800-656-4673.
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