Teachers play a vital role as educators, dedicated to helping students learn and grow. Students often rely on these instructors to prepare them for future challenges. As a result, teacher-student relationships form with teachers serving as role models. However, these relationships can be jeopardized when boundaries are crossed, leading to negative outcomes for both parties involved.

In recent years, the Santa Ana Unified School District has faced a couple of unsettling cases of teacher misconduct that have raised concerns among the community. Amidst, two cases have stood out raising concern on whether students should be wary around their teachers.

Interpersonal non-school related relationships are formed when there is an absence of professional responsibilities and activities. These relationships often end up on the news. This was the case for a 28-year-old coach at Godinez Fundamental High School and a 37-year-old choir teacher at Santa Ana High School.

Both cases involve allegations of teachers engaging in inappropriate relationships with their students, highlighting a breach of professional boundaries. Such incidents not only impact the victims but also affect the wider school community, including other students and staff members.

Case One

Aaron Raya was the head track and field coach, football coach, and substitute teacher at Godinez High School. He began speaking to the victim through social media during the school year. These texts started off as school related, but soon after the student graduated, Raya would initiate sexual attempts to meet with them.

Godinez junior Salvador Parra was partially coached by Raya his freshman and sophomore year. He explains his relationship with the coach.

“I had only known coach Raya for the two Track seasons. I ran ‘distance’ and Raya coached sprints, but as he was the head Track and Field coach, I was under his supervision. I found him to be a bit intimidating, it may have been because I was still an underclassman, but he seemed tough, and he had a deep voice and liked to impose himself,” Parra said.

Parra’s siblings were also under Raya’s care. They shared some of their own experiences to Parra, in which he recounts.

“My sibling described that one time, a group of girls consulted him about relationships. Which I found a bit disturbing, considering he was probably in his mid 20s, speaking with teenagers about their love lives. It was also a bit concerning, as they were the opposite gender and in a professional setting,” Parra said.

After the case had come to light, it was clear things had changed, especially with teacher-student relationships within the school. Parra further describes these changes.

“I do believe that to a level, it affected trust between teacher and students…I just think it may have limited the amount of closeness a student would be willing to get to a teacher. In a way, damaging the peaceful environment both students and teachers need inside of a classroom,” Parra said.

The aftermath of the situation showed an impact that stretched out to other parts of school staff. Parra elaborates more on the impact a staff member faced.

“When Raya coached Football, he was the assistant coach. I had friends tell me that the head coach of Football fell into tears when he spoke to the team about the situation because he had Raya as a student, student teacher, substitute and even as an assistant coach,” Parra said.

On July 14, 2024, Santa Ana Police officers arrested Raya at his home where he was taken into custody and was later placed at the Orange County Jail with a bail set at $100,000.

Case Two

Yessenia Navarro Garcia was a choir teacher at Santa Ana High School where she worked as a full-time choir teacher for approximately five years. She had been having sexual relations with a 17-year-old student of hers for almost 6 months.

Santa Ana High School senior Nadia Jaramillo was a member of Garcia’s choir group for over a year. Having known her since her freshman year, it was a shock to learn what had been going on with her.

“I thought she was a nice person, who made mistakes but always apologized for them…Though some of her actions were questionable such as driving students to their homes and interacting with students on her personal instagram. But at the time it was only slightly concerning. As a teacher, I truly thought she knew better,” Jaramillo said.

After the case came out, Jaramillo noticed a distant behavior being expressed towards the students Navarro had been teaching. She recalls that day;

“The Monday we came back and the news was known, there was a lot of stares and whispers towards the choir kids. It felt isolating. The choir students had barely any chance to grieve and we came back and everyone looked at us differently,” Jaramillo said. “Choir has always been my second home. So that day I was anxiously waiting for choir class.”

Jaramillo describes having felt most of the impact after the unfortunate event.

“We sat down and held each other as we sobbed, grieving for what we had and lost. The one thing that she could not take away from us was our love for one another. For that day onward we understood each other more, held each other tighter, and loved each other greater,” Jaramillo said.

This change had stretched out of the choir class. The trust between students and teachers was harmed; students had a difficult time trusting their teachers as they saw how something like what had happened was possible. Jaramillo describes this significant change.

“I know that afterwards, students, regardless of their affiliation with the choir, had a difficult time trusting teachers. I know that as a member of the choir, this event has made me very uncomfortable being alone with teachers,” Jaramillo said.

November 16, 2024 the victim texted Garcia to meet at a location in Santa Ana, and upon her arrival, she was taken into custody by officers. She was booked at the Santa Ana Jail on sexual assault related charges and her bail was set at $100,000.

Further Inquiry

These are only two cases of many occurring each year. In 2023 alone, more than 350 teachers were arrested for having inappropriate teacher-student relationships.

MCHS 11th-grade English teacher Chyna Tran shared her perspective on these incidents. With experience teaching at various schools, she has observed the impact of such misconduct.

“I have read a few news articles about the misconduct at SAHS involving the choir teacher, and I wasn’t aware of the Godinez case, but over the past few years, it seems like I constantly see new articles, often involving a coach or someone teaching electives,” Tran said.

Tran explained how these incidents affect teachers’ morale and reputation.

“I feel like educators overall are already underappreciated and undervalued so when these situations happen, with staff members who aren’t necessarily the passionate educators that most of our teachers are, it makes the educators who do care about their kids and came here for good reasons look terrible,” Tran said. “It makes us even more undervalued and unappreciated.”

To prevent such misconduct, Tran emphasized the importance of maintaining professional boundaries, like using educational apps such as Remind for communication.

“Little things such as using educational apps such as Remind for communication, so that way you are not opening that door to personal communication, which is an absolute no-no. Making sure that we have our doors open if students come and have tutoring or what not. I mean they require us every year to do training on misconduct,“ Tran said.

Tran shares that the requirements can only do so much when employing new people.

“They require us to do it but really it’s up to the individual to actually pay attention, and abide by these policies and rules now that they are in place, but there’s only so much that we can control,” Tran said.

Tran also highlighted the difficulty in identifying potential predators.

“It’s just so hard to tackle, there’s so many factors because you don’t really know if that person is a predator until an incident happens. Somebody can come in with the perfect resume, clean background check but they’ve never actually had any consequences so how do we mitigate those issues. Even after they’ve done all those training besides having consequences after the incident already happened,” Tran said.

MCHS Principal Damon Voight outlines the school’s protocols to prevent misconduct. At the beginning of each year, staff members are shown a video and given written documents that explain proper interactions between teachers and students. These resources are crucial in setting a baseline for expected behavior, but the effectiveness of these protocols hinges on their regular review and adaptation to address new challenges.

“Videos and papers that are given to them. There are documents with written explanations of what expectations are for teacher conduct. They are super thorough videos. Then there’s also The California Teacher Guide of Conduct given to them,” Voight said.

Voight takes a very serious approach when dealing with complaints.

“When students come to us with complaints, we look into it, we review their statements, and we talk to other witnesses and the teachers themselves as well,” Voight said.

Voight also explained how MCHS ensures a thriving school environment.

“I’m not aware of specific programs to rebuild trust, but our regular school activities. We have, you know, all sorts of ASB activities where teachers are involved, and all sorts of school activities that teachers are involved in that helps build trust and camaraderie with our students and our staff,” Voight said.

As schools continue to address these challenges, the emphasis remains on vigilance, transparency, and education to safeguard the school community. It is important to establish measures to avoid unfortunate things happening, but also, take measures to help those affected after it happens.