California school failed to stop teacher from ‘grooming’ 14-year-old she had sex with, suit says
Sleepless nights and feelings of isolation plague a teenager after a Northern California community learned his middle school teacher sent him explicit pictures of herself and that they had sex on his eighth-grade graduation day, the victim’s lawyer said Thursday.
Rumors spread rapidly through the small town of Gridley in Butte County after Sycamore Middle School teacher Michelle Solis’ nude pictures circulated, according to The Sacramento Bee’s previous reporting. Police officers investigated those photos and eventually arrested Solis in October 2023. The 46-year-old pleaded no contest to having unlawful sex with a minor and was sentenced July 18 to four years in prison.
But the victim, after participating in the criminal case, feels it’s just as important to hold the school and adults around Solis accountable for their failure to protect him, said Mark Boskovich, an attorney representing him. The victim was 14 years old in 2021 when the sexual contact took place.
A lawsuit filed Wednesday in Butte Superior Court alleges Solis sent inappropriate sexual messages and photos of herself to students “for a number of years” leading up to her arrest. The lawsuit alleges Gridley Unified School District was aware of her behavior yet failed to take strict disciplinary action to stop her, which eventually led to the illegal contact with the then-14-year-old boy, listed in court documents as a John Doe.
“It’s (been) a roller coaster” of emotions for the victim, Boskovich said.
Gridley Unified School District Superintendent Justin Kern did not immediately return a request for comment.
Solis, an educator for 20 years, was teaching the victim in June 2021 when she “friended” him on Instagram, prosecutors said. They began talking online in the weeks leading up to his middle school graduation.
She lured the victim under the guise of helping him with his homework to spend time alone with him during the 2020-21 school year, the lawsuit said.
A yard duty supervisor wrote passes — under the teacher’s direction — for the teenager to spend recess and lunches with Solis, according to the lawsuit.
Prosecutors said Solis sent four explicit pictures of herself and then had sex with the teen inside a locked classroom on the day of the student’s eighth-grade graduation. She directed the victim to delete their “communications,” according to a news release from the Butte County District Attorney’s Office.
The district failed to properly screen Solis, supervise her, discipline her “grooming behaviors” and train other employees to detect Solis’ behavior and stop it, the lawsuit said.
Teachers must be on guard if they learn colleagues are texting and fraternizing with students outside of normal school hours, Boskovich said.
“If we do that, we are going to protect a lot more kids,” Boskovich said.
The Gridley Unified School District had warned Solis of her behavior but failed to act quickly to stop her, he said.
The lawsuit is seeking an unspecified dollar amount in “general damages and other non-economic relief” after the victim suffered physical, mental and emotional injuries, the lawsuit said.
The sexual assault still affects the teen, Boskovich said.
When events happen outside of the victim’s control, “he is back in the classroom where he had no control of the situation and felt helpless,” Boskovich said.
Solis is serving her sentence at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla.