Pain, anger, and disgust: Inside Rosemead High's reckoning with decades of sexual abuse of students

Rosemead High School — Rosemead High in southern California has been in a state of turmoil since Insider revealed decades of sexual abuse at the hands of former teacher Eric Burgess.
(Christopher Vu for Insider)

Rosemead High senior Xitlalic Palacios knew that she had to speak up. It had been two days since Insider published a story about Eric Burgess, her former journalism teacher, and she'd barely slept.

For the past three years, Palacios had served as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, which Burgess oversaw before school officials removed him from the classroom and investigated his sexual relationships with teenage girls. As Palacios prepared for what would be her final meeting as the sole student representative of the school board, she grappled with what to say. Many on campus were seething at the superintendent's response to the revelations, saying that the school was "dedicated to creating a safe, secure environment" for students.

But Palacios wasn't sure if what she wanted to say – that she could relate to the survivors Burgess had abused because she could have become one herself – was what her peers or the adults charged with ensuring their safety at school needed to hear in this moment of crisis. So she kept that part to herself, just as she'd done so many times before.

That didn't mean Palacios would stay silent, though. Far from it.

"My job has always been to serve the students. My job was never to correct the wrongs of grown adults," Palacios said at the May 18 meeting, filling a moment when school district officials expected her to thank them. "But I'm not sure I have much of a choice as I sit here with you today."

Read more: He was my high school journalism teacher. Then I investigated his relationships with teenage girls.

The tension in the room was palpable even through the meeting's livestream. Palacios thought of the 8,000 students she was speaking for in the El Monte Union High School District. She thought of her parents, who worried about the consequences that could meet their daughter for speaking out. And of her brother, who assured her that yes, she had to say what others were too afraid to acknowledge.

Xitlalic Palacios speaking — Rosemead Senior Xitlalic Palacios delivers a searing statement during an emotional school board meeting in the wake of Insider's reporting.
El Monte Union High School District/YouTube

"I think the public is owed an explanation or an apology," Palacios said to the five adult school board members who sat beside her, silent. "I hope our district and my school campus – and any school campus at that – makes an effort to adequately combat these issues. I hope they genuinely work to create safety protocols. I hope our students' firsthand accounts are valued. I hope, I hope, I hope. But it shouldn't come down to hope. Because hope and luck isn't a saving grace. Hope and luck isn't what I or any student should be betting on. Our students deserve better, and I demand that you all do better. Because if this is your best, your best efforts haven't been good enough."

Rosemead High's community has been in a state of turmoil since Insider detailed how former English teacher and one-time "Golden Boy" Eric Burgess groomed students for sex for decades. Despite student complaints and obvious red flags, school and district officials missed repeated opportunities to put a stop to Burgess' behavior. Rosemead's reckoning has taken a toll on students and faculty, interviews with 57 people connected to the school show, with a tense distrust dominating the final days of the school year.

The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department has opened an investigation into Burgess' relationships with former students as well as possible abuse by other Rosemead High teachers, Sgt. Robert Leyba said. Leyba and another deputy assigned to Rosemead told Insider that the department was surprised to learn of Burgess' departure from the school by reading Insider's reporting, rather than hearing from school officials.

Leyba said that district officials first contacted the sheriff's department in April 2019, when they opened their investigation of Burgess' sexual relationships with former students. At the time, district officials had no cooperating victims, so deputies instructed them to keep the department apprised of what they found.

The Sheriff's Department never heard back from the district, Leyba said.

"For us to move forward with our special victims bureau, we have to have a victim," Leyba said. If former students come forward to the department now, he said, it could "open a lot of other things," including the possibility of criminal charges or civil suits being filed.

In 2019, California extended the statute of limitations for cases of sexual abuse involving minors. Survivors now have until the age of 40 to file a civil lawsuit, or five years after the discovery of the abuse, whichever is later. The amended law also opened a three-year window for adults to file civil claims that were previously barred by the statute of limitations; that window closes December 31, 2022.

Rosemead high school marquee — Rosemead High School is in a state of turmoil.
(Christopher Vu for Insider)

Community members and alumni have called for Rosemead High School and district officials to resign in recent days. Back on campus, hundreds of Rosemead students walked out of class in protest, demanding that school officials take steps to ensure their safety.

Anger among students boiled over last week, when two allegedly vandalized the Rosemead High campus—including the classroom door where Burgess was once caught having sex with a student who had graduated just weeks prior. Many students expected an apology from school officials in response to Insider's reporting, and were dismayed when they were told that staff had done all they could to address abusive behavior by teachers.

"They need to recognize what happened and not just send out these pathetic excuses," said junior Zachery Larson, who led the May 20 student walkout. "This is a problem and it can no longer be ignored. I hope they can at least acknowledge that by the end of the school year."

The classroom where Eric Burgess was caught having sex with a student who'd graduated just weeks before — The door to the classroom where Eric Burgess was once caught having sex with a student who'd graduated just weeks before was recently vandalized.
(Insider)

Larson and other students are scheduled to meet with Rosemead principal Brian Bristol on Friday to discuss allegations of misconduct against other teachers. The dark mood on campus has been punctuated in recent days with fresh allegations regarding a current Rosemead High teacher who has been absent from school; Bristol declined to comment.

School staff, meanwhile, are openly questioning whether the school is doing enough to prevent the predatory grooming behavior that Burgess excelled at for so long.

"We aren't doing enough to protect our kids," Rosemead High psychologist Alexi Adams told Insider, calling for more education and training of staff and students alike. "Kids can't protect themselves if they don't know what to look for. The groomers are so charismatic and charming that the kids do not know what is happening; they are easy victims."

Rosemead High School panthers sign — Rosemead High School sits just east of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley.
(Christopher Vu for Insider)

As the campus community continues to search for answers, questions have intensified around Bristol's initial handling of an explosive whistleblower memo about Burgess' behavior.

The document, which the principal received in April 2018, documented in stark detail sexual relationships that Burgess had had with female students going back 20 years. The memo included dates, ID numbers of students who were aware of Burgess' inappropriate behavior, and the names of five former students with whom he'd allegedly had sexual relationships.

Bristol sat on the information for a year.

It wasn't until the following spring, when screenshots of sexually explicit messages Burgess had exchanged with a former student were posted to social media, that Bristol took action and removed Burgess from the classroom. District officials then notified the Sheriff's Department.

Felipe Ibarra, a former assistant superintendent who oversaw the district's investigation of Burgess, told Insider that Bristol initially "insisted he had provided me the memo via e-mail, however from a search of our email trails, it was clearly evident that he had not. He subsequently apologized and explained why he thought he had sent the memo."

Ibarra said that the district's outside law firm, Olivarez Madruga Lemieux O'Neill, selected the private investigative firm that used the memo as a jumping off point for the district's probe. District officials were unaware of the numerous complaints that parents and staff in neighboring school districts had made regarding other investigations involving the firm, Nicole Miller & Associates, Ibarra said.

Ibarra said investigators interviewed many of the students named in the memo, including Burgess' ex-wife, and that "none gave him up." Those closest to Burgess, Ibarra said, "protected him well."

As Insider previously reported, it was Burgess's documented efforts to obstruct the district's investigation of his relationship with a former student, rather than the relationship itself, that cost him his job.

Former Rosemead High English teacher Eric Burgess.
(Insider)

Neither Bristol nor Zuniga responded to detailed questions for this story, including why Zuniga claimed recently that school officials "promptly removed" Burgess from the classroom upon learning of his relationships with teenage girls.

After he was forced out of Rosemead High in December 2019, Burgess went on to do recruiting work, ultimately landing a job with Meta (formerly known as Facebook), Insider has learned. The day after Insider's investigation was published, Burgess lost his job at Meta, multiple company employees confirmed; spokesman Joe Osborne declined to comment. Burgess didn't respond to requests for comment.

The time it took for school officials to act on credible tips about Burgess — as well as the numerous other red flags about the teacher's behavior that were either ignored or not thoroughly investigated during his 20-year career — became a focal point of a student walk-out at Rosemead High last month.

Rosemead High students walk out of class in a protest sparked by Insider's reporting.
(Insider)

"Enough is enough," a flier advertising the protest read. "Why did it take 20 years?" read one sign. "Sexual misconduct between students & teachers should NOT be normalized or ignored," read another.

The week of the walkout, district officials diverted psychological services from other schools in the district to Rosemead High, internal emails reviewed by Insider show. Many longtime school employees said they'd never seen anything like it.

"These kids are tired of being dismissed," one longtime employee said, recalling how in the past when students have come forward with allegations of abuse, they were disregarded by administrators. "We need to heal as a school. So many kids are broken."

A group of concerned alumni, meanwhile, are demanding that the district take steps to ensure more students aren't abused. They are drafting a petition to send to district officials, said Cynthia Amezcua, an alum who is organizing the effort.

"We are owed a meeting with Rosemead High administrators," said Amezcua, who urged officials to address Rosemead's culture of secrecy during an emotional public comment at the recent school board meeting. After listening to her and others call for accountability, a lawyer for the district ignored the remarks and read a prepared statement.

"It's nonsense for them to hide behind these legal counsel statements," Amezcua said. "They think that will get us to calm down, and that's not going to happen."

Xitlalic Palacios was desperate to find community when she arrived at Rosemead High as a freshman in the fall of 2018. Most of her friends had gone to nearby El Monte High; the only people she knew at Rosemead were her older brother and Burgess, whom she'd met in summer school.

Typically, freshmen aren't allowed to enroll in the student newspaper. But Burgess made an exception for Palacios, telling her to let her counselor know he'd given permission for her to join the staff, emails between Burgess and Palacios show.

Palacios loved to write. In Burgess, she thought she'd found a mentor, both for journalism and for the academic decathlon team she hoped to join, which he'd led to numerous state competitions. Palacios remembers her first day in Burgess' classroom, her eyes scanning the trophies that lined his desk.

Palacios pictured her name on one of them and claimed a seat in the front row, directly in front of her teacher's desk.

"He made me feel like I had a place where I belonged," Palacios told me.

Even though she was the youngest member of the newspaper staff, Palacios recalled, Burgess would tell other students that she was the "best journalist here" and would be his editor-in-chief someday. Palacios remembers eavesdropping on a conversation Burgess had with the leader of the academic decathlon team.

Palacios recalled that when he finished, Burgess fist-bumped the student and walked over to her desk, where he kneeled down — "uncomfortably close," she said — and explained that she would be spending a lot of time in his class over the next four years and she would need to make it a priority. Burgess urged her to consider dropping her other extracurricular activities, including the Associated Student Body and volunteer work, to make time for the newspaper and the academic decathlon team. When Palacios told him that her other activities were also important to her, Burgess said that his classes would help her "more."

"His personality shifted based on who you were," Palacios said. "He could be really hard on students. But with me, I never got that experience. He never asked me questions that I couldn't answer."

Like other students who grew close to Burgess, Palacios befriended his son, a child Burgess raised with a former student and who was a senior during Palacios' freshman year. When Burgess was pulled from the classroom the following spring, his son told Palacios what school officials still have never publicly acknowledged: Burgess became sexually involved with a female student weeks after she'd graduated.

"My first reaction was denial," Palacios said. "I thought, 'There's no way. This is someone I trust.'"

The truth didn't register with Palacios until a classmate on the academic decathlon team told her that he'd personally seen the sexually explicit messages from Burgess to his student that kids had been gossiping about. The rumors about their teacher, he told Palacios, were true.

"We were both at a loss," Palacios said. "We both looked up to him."

Palacios downplayed what was going on at school with her parents. "I was scared to admit there was something weird happening," she told me. "I felt kind of foolish and embarrassed."

The first time she told her parents how close she'd grown to Burgess was the day Insider published its investigation. Reading the story made Palacios feel ill; she stayed home from school the next day.

"My dad kept saying, 'It could have been you,'" Palacios told Insider. "'It could have been you.'"

Rosemead High "Panther Pride" — The class of 2022 graduates from Rosemead High school this Friday, June 3.
(Christopher Vu for Insider)

Palacios graduates from Rosemead High this week, leaving behind a school in crisis. She's spent her final days on campus encouraging her peers to demand action to ensure their safety. She heads to UCLA this fall to study political science.

Looking back on the months she spent in Burgess' classroom, Palacios is reminded of all that she had going for her. She benefited from the presence of other adults who looked out for her and celebrated her success.

"If I wasn't able to get the protection when I had all these connections, all these people who claimed they cared about me, I can only imagine how these girls who didn't have that support felt," Palacios said, her mind going back to the students who came before her whom she now knows Burgess abused. "If they couldn't protect me, how could they protect anyone?"

Palacios feels manipulated and used by Burgess, echoing what many other former Burgess students have told Insider in recent days. She also feels guilty for unwittingly being a part of the image Burgess cultivated on campus for so long. But more than anything else, Palacios is grateful that the incoming class of freshmen will never know her former teacher.

"I feel like the last one who has any connection to Eric Burgess on this campus. And that's comforting to me," Palacios said. "I can only imagine if there were more students who felt the damage that I feel."