Photo by Feliphe Schiarolli on Unsplash

Plus: "Through the cracks"

Parents, volunteers, and staff speak out about safety concerns at public schools.

After reporting on Elias Huizar, who had worked in public schools in Yakima, Sunnyside, and Richland in various capacities — as an SRO, a substitute teacher, and an ‘unofficial’ volunteer — we heard from a number of concerned parents of children in public schools. We also had substitute teachers, paras, and other staff members contact us with information that shed some light on how someone with Huizar’s past record could have slipped through the cracks, and been allowed to work with children (although many questions remain).

Shortly after the tragic murders of Amber Rodriguez and Angelica Santos, Richland School District released a timeline of events that included two recommendations from Yakima School District, despite the fact that Huizar had been under investigation for allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor.

From RSD’s April 23 post:

January 31, 2022:
The Richland School District received a reference from the Principal of Franklin Middle School (Yakima School District), where Mr. Huizar was employed as a School Resource Officer. The principal rated Mr. Huizar as a ‘very good’ candidate for the substitute position he applied for.
February 2, 2022:
The Richland School District received a reference from the Vice Principal of Franklin Middle School (Yakima School District), where Mr. Huizar was employed as a School Resource Officer. The Vice Principal rated Mr. Huizar as an ‘excellent’ candidate for the substitute position he applied for.

One parent wrote to us, saying: “You guys did a great job with your deep dive in the shooting suspect yesterday. It would be great if you could dive deep into who in the Yakima School District gave him not one but two glowing reviews…” 

When Tumbleweird investigated these recommendations, we were denied any access to any of the records related to Huizar’s employment. Even after he died, we were told: “Those records are still exempt under RCW 42.56.2500(1)(B) even though Mr. Elias Huizar has passed away” by Nayomi Munguia, RSD’s Records Specialist.

The April 23 timeline post from RSD also included the following information:

February 4, 2022:
Mr. Huizar completed his drug screen at Lourdes Occupational Health.
His fingerprints were taken at the Educational Services District 123, and were used to run background checks with the Washington State Patrol and FBI. Both background checks came back clear, allowing Mr. Huizar to proceed with the employment process at RSD.
February 7, 2022:
RSD initiated Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) Emergency Substitute Certificate application, electronically signed and completed by Mr. Huizar. This application asked background questions in the Character and Fitness supplement including “Have you ever resigned from or otherwise left any employment while allegations of misconduct were pending?” and “Are you currently or have you ever been the subject of an investigation or inquiry by an employer because of allegations of misconduct?” Both questions Mr. Huizar answered ‘no.’ He also signed an affidavit certifying all information included in the emergency substitute application was true and correct.
February 8, 2022:
Yakima School District sent the Washington State Sexual Misconduct Disclosure Release to Richland School District. The Yakima School District checked the box for ‘No sexual misconduct materials found.’ This document was sent to RSD from the Yakima School District Human Resources Department.

Understandably, multiple parents responded with anger, confusion, and fear when they learned that this man had been in close contact with their children. Many parents contacted us asking us to look into the hiring practices at the school districts. They expressed frustration with the responses to their concerns.

“I’d love for [the school districts] to just take some responsibility. Let’s figure out how to protect our kids! … How about instead of saying, ‘It's not our fault. We didn't know....’ say, ‘Obviously something has to change because the normal stuff that we do allowed this person to be in a place they should have never been.’” — Anonymous Parent in Pasco, Washington
“I’m a keep-to-myself mom and like to just focus on my family, but with everything that happened, it got me stressed and worried about having my son in public school. And I know I’m not the only one who has been stressed. It’s so sad that parents have to worry about this stuff. The world is already a stressful place, the schools shouldn’t be. The schools should be safe for all the kids and their staff.
[We always thought]: ‘That wouldn’t happen in our school.’ … For me, now being a mom, I worry about it all the time. Makes me feel like a helicopter mom, but with kids, you have to think about how to keep your kids safe.” — Anonymous Parent in Richland, Washington

One Richland parent shared a letter she wrote to the Richland School District with us:

To whom it may concern:
My son goes to a Richland school. I was hesitant to send him and had planned on homeschooling but was told the Richland School District was a great school district. I believed that and sent him to his first year of school in your public schools.
With everything that has recently happened, more and more things have risen to my attention to make me feel as though I, and all the other parents, have made a terrible mistake trusting our children to go to your schools.
One of many problems was this statement made in the email you sent to all of the parents [regarding Elias Huizar]: 
“It is the expectation for individuals who apply for employment with RSD to be forthcoming and truthful in their applications.”
Do all of the predators who apply to work in schools put on their applications that they are, in fact, a predator? How can we, as parents, trust you, the school, if you’re trusting predators to be truthful about being predators?
Another problem that has come up:
With all of this happening, many people have come forward about reports they made to the different schools in the Richland School District about staff, including principals, being inappropriate with students — but nothing was done. How can you reassure all of the parents that inappropriate behavior performed by one of your staff won’t be pushed aside or swept under the rug?
A problem concerning Elias Huizar’s employment:
In the email that was sent out to the parents and in the press conference, we were told Mr. Huizar’s background check came back clean. I decided to test that out. I ran a background check on Mr. Huizar using BeenVerified.com. It showed the results of a background check he did to get hired at a furniture delivery store. The furniture store wouldn’t hire Mr. Huizar because the background check showed one count of terrorizing (with a knife) and two counts of criminal trespassing. The hiring manager of the furniture store said that because they deliver furniture to people’s homes, and have to enter their homes, they could not hire [Huizar] because it would not be safe for their customers. This was before he applied to the school district. 
A furniture store has more concern about their customers’ safety than a school district has concern for its students and staff. Can you explain how terrorizing and criminal trespass is clean, or considered safe for our schools? 
How many other staff members and volunteers have had background checks that were not clean? 
In the press conference [on 4/24/24], someone asked if the school district will be redoing the background checks of its staff members and we were told that it will be discussed. The correct answer — the answer that would have shown that you care for the safety of the staff and children — would have been, “Yes, we are going to redo the background checks on all of the staff and volunteers to make sure another Huizar didn’t manage to get in.” 
And I can guarantee that every parent who has a child enrolled in your schools would like you to re-evaluate that answer and do what is right for all of the children and staff under your care. If you do rerun the background checks, please, on behalf of all of the parents TERRIFIED to trust their children’s lives into your hands, LOOK AT THE BACKGROUND CHECKS. Just because they don’t have a history of sexual assault does NOT mean they are safe. If they have a record of violent behavior, that means they are NOT safe to be working in a school. 
We are trusting you with our children — our entire world! Many already regret trusting you. 
Do better. Fix your mistake. Earn back our trust. 
The children and your staff deserve better.
— Tiana R.

Tiana told Tumbleweird that she never received a response to her letter.

We wanted to understand more about the hiring process at local schools, given that this man with criminal investigations in his background had held several positions in and around public school children. Thankfully, we also received a lot of personal testimony from past and current school staff on this subject, and we are grateful to those who volunteered the following statements.

From an RSD Paraeducator:

I am employed with Richland School District as a substitute paraeducator, and I find it extremely disturbing that I was hired without a single interview — not even a phone call. I applied and they sent me an email saying I was hired; they didn’t call any of my past employers or personal referrals.
I told [RSD] that it had been years since I’d worked, due to being a stay-at-home mom, so they said to just give personal referrals. I gave a couple, whom they never called. The past employer number was out of service because the call center is no longer there, so I know they definitely didn’t talk to anyone, and didn’t ask me for an alternate number.
I only had to pass a background check and a drug test. 
Paras are working with the most vulnerable kids in the school; plenty of them are nonverbal. And as a parent with a child who works with paras every day and is constantly having a substitute, I was disturbed that they never even met with me once before hiring me. So I don’t find it surprising that [Elias Huizar] was hired as a substitute for the district without even so much [as] a Google search of his name. Anyone who knows the details of the story knows that he groomed both his late wife and girlfriend while he was working at a school district, and started dating them before they were of age. 
His past employer at the police department may not have disclosed the issues they had with him, but … his domestic violence issues were well known in the school district, considering his late wife worked for Richland School District and there had been a documented [incident] that occurred on school grounds.

From an RSD substitute teacher:

When you apply for a job with the Richland School District, most of the communication/hiring is done via email. The whole thing took less than a week.
I applied on a Tuesday. First, I registered with the district by creating a profile. Then, I submitted my application and résumé. I had to give references. Those references are sent a survey to complete about you. When I applied, they called two of my references out of three.
I had to go and get my fingerprints checked at the ESD 123 in Pasco. They immediately ran my fingerprints and sent a report to RSD. I had to pay for this, and I also paid for my transcripts to be sent. 
Friday, they sent me an email saying I had an onboarding interview the following Monday. I was a little confused because it was the same week I applied; it just seemed really fast. 
I showed up on Monday and they had my paperwork ready for me to sign. During the paperwork signing, I spoke with the person who hires the subs. She said that they had COVID funds to hire people, and there wasn’t going to be an interview. 
During COVID, it was very difficult to find teachers or subs, so a lot of people were given emergency [substitute teaching certificates]. 

We reached out to Richland School District for comment, and they sent the following:

The Richland School District runs background checks and fingerprints through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Washington State Patrol (WSP) databases. The results are sent from the FBI/WSP to the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) where they are put into a secure database for designated district Human Resources staff to view. If a background check comes back with something on it, Human Resources can see what it is, make a note in the employment file, and decline to hire. If the background check comes back clear, as it did for Elias Huizar, the district will move forward with employment. Legally, the district cannot print the FBI or WSP patrol background checks provided by OSPI. However, staff are allowed to make notes in the employment file based on what appeared in the check. OSPI will retrain [sic] the records for two years before disposing of them. More information about fingerprinting and background check requirements for school districts can be found here: https://ospi.k12.wa.us/certification/fingerprints-background-checks.

Before anyone is hired as a substitute, part-time, or full-time employee at the Richland School District, they are interviewed, and references are checked. Any past employers listed on the application are contacted. If we cannot reach a past employer for verification of employment, hiring is put on hold until we can contact the employer, or the employee is not hired. Verification of employment is different than a reference check. The Richland School District has and will continue to follow all hiring procedures set forth by the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI). State laws related to hiring of school district employees can be found here: https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=28A.400.

From an KSD substitute teacher:

I applied to be an Emergency Substitute Teacher for Kennewick School District in the summer of 2022. To apply, I had to fill out their application and submit a resume, my college transcript, and three letters of recommendation. 
In September, I had one interview with the sub coordinator for Kennewick School District. It was very short. She basically said I was qualified and could be a sub, and she gave me instructions on how to get my emergency substitute teaching certificate.
To get the certificate, I had to apply through the district and state website. I also had to go in for fingerprinting in October. Then I had to wait for it all to process, which took a while. 
I started in November.
I had to do about 6–10 hours of online video training. I was told I had four weeks to complete the training, but I took a job before I finished it. There was nothing stopping me from signing up for jobs before I was done with the training.
…
Each school is supposed to provide information on emergency procedures. At some schools, the front office hands substitutes a standard binder along with the keys to the classroom. 
In other schools, like at Kennewick High School, the front office doesn't give you a binder. Instead, the classroom teacher is supposed to have a sub binder with that information. But many times, I found that either the teacher didn’t have a binder or I couldn't find it.
Also, every classroom is supposed to have an emergency clipbook or binder that includes information like fire drill procedures, student rosters, maps of exits and routes, and more. That is usually by the door, but not always. 
Many times, the problem isn’t that there is no information at all, but that it is not easy to find, and you only have 15 minutes to get ready before you have to start teaching. You are only paid to show up 15 minutes before class starts, which is not enough time to get familiar with the school, classroom, lesson plan, and emergency procedures.
…
During the lockdown last year — when there was a bomb threat/someone dangerous in the area and the police came and cleared the building — a lot of people didn’t take it seriously.
One teacher delayed locking his classroom door so he could finish making his coffee. Another teacher kept letting other kids into the class, and when a student asked why, he told her to be quiet and mind her own business. Also, many students in lockdown said they could see cops hanging out in the hallway on their phones. 
There were still some traumatized people, though. One teacher was crying, and some of the cops opened doors and pointed guns into classrooms full of students while clearing the school.

The KSD employee added that multiple times, she had been placed in a classroom with students that spoke no English, which would have made it very difficult for her to communicate instructions in the case of an emergency.

She also relayed an incident with another substitute who had been fired the previous day. This was the email she sent to her supervisor:

The sub from the previous day arrived about 10 minutes after I did, apparently with no knowledge that he was not supposed to be working that day. He stayed for several minutes, clearly confused and agitated about the situation before someone from the front office arrived to tell him I was the sub for the day and he needed to call you. The other teachers later told me what he had said that likely caused him to be replaced, but it seemed that they had not been informed about the situation either…. 
Allowing the former sub to return to school property after being replaced could have resulted in an unsafe situation for myself and others. I am very concerned that I was put in a potentially confrontational situation with someone who may have become belligerent, especially without any idea of what was going on. Can you please let me know the relevant policy and procedures and how they failed to prevent this situation? And if there is not a standard procedure, who I can talk to about that? Would that be a concern to raise to the school board?

She never received a reply.

We reached out to Kennewick School District for comment, and they offered to address the concerns of the substitute teacher who reached out to us, if she should desire to contact them. They also said:

Kennewick School District has robust hiring, onboarding, and training processes in place for all employee groups. For substitutes, we ensure that they meet the necessary qualifications of the position and have completed necessary background checks and fingerprinting prior to being in classrooms. The safety and security of our students and staff, including substitutes, is top priority. Our newly updated Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan includes specific processes to ensure substitutes are aware of and trained on emergency procedures. Each year, prior to the start of the school year, we review these procedures with building administrators and strive to have consistency across our buildings. This year, we will be expanding our orientation and training efforts for our substitutes.

If you read our previous articles — especially ‘How did this happen? How did the system fail to protect the victims of Elias Huizar?’ — you already know that every answer we find creates more questions.

We stand with the parents, educators, and other community members who want to make sure we’re moving forward, and strengthening our schools for the future. Most importantly, we must protect the children by finding the gaps in these systems and repairing them.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Share your story

If you have any information, contact Tri-Cities Timeline: tricitiestimeline.com/contact-us

Listen

Listen to and believe victims of abuse. Learn what it means to be a mandatory reporter. Learn the signs of domestic violence and child abuse and speak up if you see anything. Three great resources:

Get involved

Volunteer. Commit an hour or two a week to local schools and be a consistent, supportive member of the community.

Show up to school board meetings and participate. Educate yourself by reading over local and state policies surrounding the requirements of local school leadership. Talk directly to elected leaders to enact change and hold them accountable to state, local, and personal commitments.

Vote

One of the most important things you can do to participate in your community is to vote in local elections. Make sure you are registered to vote at www.vote411.org

Special thanks to Brendan Quinn for his excellent post about the ways in which we can all help improve our community, and show up for each other (especially the children in our school districts): https://t.ly/Hvzaw

A huge thank you to all of the community members that reached out to us — especially those that disclosed facts about their own experiences being hired and/or trained by local school districts.

Through the cracks

Here are the major turning points we found over the course of our investigation — the weak points in our government institutions that allowed a sexual predator, Elias Huizar, to slip through the cracks and gain access to vulnerable children.

1. School district background checks failed to turn up past criminal charges.

In 2008, Huizar was charged with terrorizing, disorderly conduct, and criminal trespassing (police report). All charges were dismissed; however, they do show up on a background check (background check).

  • Did these arrests come up on the background check by Richland School District (RSD)?
  • If so, did they not affect Huizar’s eligibility to be hired? 
  • Was it because the charges were dismissed that they did not count against him?

2. Police department failed to write up a mandatory reporter violation.

In 2019, the AG’s office investigated allegations of Huizar having sexual misconduct with Angelica Santos at Washington Middle School, and concluded: “No independent evidence of sexual contact between Santos and Huizar has been identified in this investigation.” (Attorney General’s Report). Therefore, no criminal charges that would show up on a background check were filed.

A separate internal Yakima Police Department (YPD) investigation found that Huizar failed to report the allegations as part of his mandatory reporter obligations. Murray, YPD Police Chief at the time, wrote up a reprimand for that policy violation, but failed to complete it in the time frame required by the union contract. Therefore, this reprimand was not on Huizar’s record when the RSD hired him (OPB article).

  • If Huizar had had a reprimand for failing to follow mandatory reporting policy on his employment record with the YPD, would that have excluded him from being hired by RSD?

More details about this investigation can be found on the Tri-Cities Timeline and in the article “Alleged child rapist working at a RSD had a long history of investigations for crimes involving children”

After the investigation closed, Huizar was reassigned to work as a School Resource Officer (SRO) at Franklin Middle School. RSD stated that both the principal and vice principal recommended Huizar for the position of substitute teacher (RSD post), but Huizar’s full job application is still exempt from public records requests, so we do not know if the SRO position at Washington Middle School was listed (Attorney General’s Report).

  • Why did the principal and vice principal of Franklin Middle School (Yakima School District) rate Huizar as ‘very good’ and ‘excellent’ for a position as substitute teacher?
  • Were Yakima school officials unaware of the investigation into Huizar’s alleged sexual misconduct with a minor?

4. Police were called to break up a disturbance at Wiley Elementary, but the incident seems to have been largely ignored.

In 2021, Huizar confronted and verbally threatened Amber Rodriguez and her father in front of Wiley Elementary in Richland. The confrontation became heated enough that the principal called the police. The West Richland Police Department responded and broke up the disturbance (case report). 
[This bullet point was updated on 10/2/24]

  • Did this incident come up during Huizar’s hiring process with RSD? 
  • With the report stating that the principal of Wiley stood between the two people in the altercation, and called the police to school property, does RSD not have their own incident report for this confrontation? If not, why not?
  • If there was no policy in place in 2021, is there a protocol now for dealing with confrontations on school grounds in which the police are involved? 

5. YPD asked another department to investigate Huizar, but nothing about the investigation was shared with RSD.

YPD had another department, Union Gap Police Department (UGPD), start a separate criminal investigation into Rodriguez’s relationship with Huizar, whom she met when she was a high school student and he was the volunteer wrestling coach (age 24). While Rodriguez did not want to cooperate with the investigating officer and said she willinging entered into a relationship with Huizar, this seems to have been out of concerns for her safety if Huizar was arrested (investigation report). Though the investigation closed in early 2022 without criminal charges, it was still ongoing during Huizar's hiring process with the Richland School District.

Shawna Dinh, the Public Information Officer at RSD, said in an email to Tumbleweird on March 29, 2024 (email):

“On February 8, 2022, the Richland School District also received notification from Yakima School District’s Human Resources Department that Mr. Huizar had no sexual misconduct notes while employed for their district.”

  • Given that Huizar had been investigated for sexual misconduct at a YSD school, if there were no sexual misconduct notes from YSD’s HR Department, what constitutes a ‘note’?
  • Huizar was under an ongoing external investigation by the UGPD for sexual misconduct with a minor. How did the Richland School District not become informed of that during the hiring process.
  • Why did the Yakima School District say he had no sexual misconduct notes while employed for their district when he was not employed by the school district? His employer in Yakima was the Yakima Police Department. Was the Yakima Police Department contacted about any sexual misconduct?

6. After his tumultuous career in the YPD, an “out of control” police officer was hired by RSD, who was not made aware of any of his past run-ins with the law. 

Huizar resigned from the YPD four days after his hire date by RSD. During his leave of over 191 days, the YPD was aware of multiple incidents involving Huizar, and even put out an internal memo warning the other YPD officers to relay officer safety issues to the rest of the team if they occurred during their investigations of Huizar (tumbleweird.org/elias-huizar). Chief Murray said, “It was clear that Huizar was spiraling out of control.”  

The YPD put in his employment record that Huizar was not eligible to be re-hired, but since Huizar had already been hired by RSD, none of this showed up in his employment records during the employment process (notice of officer separation).

  • What made Huizar ineligible to be re-hired by the YPD and why was the Richland School District not informed of these concerns?

WHAT NOW?

What could have been done when there was smoke filling the sky, but no technical proof of fire to prevent this predator from having access to children?

These failures are clearly not an isolated incident of a predator manipulating the system, but point to real weaknesses in the ability of our institutions to protect our children, as seen in the recent case of another school security officer accused of kidnapping a missing teen girl he knew through working at her middle school. (Tricities Herald article, KPD post).

Sign up for email updates at tricitiestimeline.com and follow Tumbleweird to learn about the next steps we can take to make changes to our systems to prevent predators like Huizar from exploiting the weaknesses in those systems.