How reports of Sacramento High coach partying with kids led to teacher’s firing
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Students at Sacramento Charter High School talked openly for months about attending parties with alcohol and drugs that were hosted by the school football coach, according to records obtained by The Sacramento Bee. Three teachers told administrators about overhearing students’ descriptions, one hearing that students became so intoxicated at these gatherings that they needed rideshares to get home.
But an investigation into repeated allegations that coaches and other staff members were partying with students concluded that there was “no corroboration that Sac High personnel participated in parties where alcohol, marijuana or inappropriate activity occurred.” The investigator did not recommend any disciplinary or administrative action.
The first teacher to report concerns about the head football coach received a termination letter later that school year.
The investigation was included in the district’s review of the school’s operator, St. Hope Public Schools, during the charter renewal process in May 2024. However, the investigative records that St. Hope administrators provided to the Sacramento City Unified School District were incomplete.
A Sacramento Bee investigation found that rather than a single teacher reporting rumors about parties, three teachers made reports based on both overhearing student conversations in the classroom and students confiding in them privately.
A spokesperson expressed disappointment on behalf of the district after being notified that St. Hope had withheld some teacher reports of misconduct.
“We are disappointed to learn there were four emails related to a personnel investigation that were not included in the material provided to us by St. HOPE and their legal counsel and we will address this with the school administration,” Chief Communications Officer Brian Heap said.
Public records show that the first teacher to make a report about the head football coach to Principal Christina Williams-James did so on Sept. 22, 2023. In an email, she wrote that several students directly told her that a staff member has thrown parties for students and that the students “implied that he supplies them with alcohol and is cool with them drinking at his house.” She was referring to coach Kimbbie Drayton.
The teacher who made this report would receive a termination letter later that school year.
Drayton said in a May 1 interview with The Bee that he hosted a single birthday party on Aug. 5, 2023, for two students where parents were present and no alcohol was served. He denied the allegations that he hosted or attended parties where students were drinking alcohol. He also denied knowledge that there was ever an investigation conducted into these claims.
However, records show that there was an investigation into reports of staff drinking with students.
Longtime St. Hope legal counsel Kevin Hiestand conducted the investigation into claims that Drayton and other staff members partied with students. Students interviewed by Hiestand and the St. Hope human resources director said they didn’t witness any wrongdoing by staff members, according to the Jan. 4, 2024 investigation report and St. Hope officials.
The handling of these reports and allegations that a staff member was retaliated against for making them were among the concerns that inspired the district to request an investigative audit into St. Hope. Despite concerns about conflicts of interest, teacher qualifications and student outcomes, the charter was renewed with conditions that will be determined by the end of June of this year.
Materials provided to the district contained few details about the allegations of drinking with students. The Sacramento Bee pressed St. Hope administrators for eight months to make more of those records public.
This is the first public account of who this investigation involved and how the investigation was handled.
Administrators responded to the district’s request for records related to the investigation with two redacted complaints, a portion of a partially-redacted investigation summary and a termination letter sent to one of the teachers who reported her conversations with students. St. Hope Superintendent Lisa Ruda, who died from cancer earlier this month, wrote in a response to the district’s audit findings that this former teacher was “at-war” with St. Hope.
In written responses to the district regarding the investigation, St. Hope administrators refer only to a single teacher reporting the conversations about drinking among students, one who would later be terminated in part for “not making the allegations in good faith.”
But documents obtained by The Sacramento Bee through public records requests and sources close to the investigation show that at least three teachers made allegations related to Drayton over the course of three months. At least one of these reports contained direct conversations with students who said they attended these parties.
The terminated teacher, whose name and initials do appear in records obtained by The Bee, was not able to comment for this story due to a settlement agreement which reversed their termination and included monetary compensation, according to a source involved in the matter but not authorized to discuss it.
St. Hope Director of Operations Elisha Ferguson Parsons said that “whatever is agreed to by both parties in a settlement agreement does not change the fact that the school found it necessary to terminate the employee for the reasons documented.”
Two other St. Hope teachers who made reports were interviewed and confirmed redacted details but requested anonymity out of fear it would affect their employment opportunities. They said they still believe that their students were telling them the truth about the coach.
What St. Hope teachers reported
In her initial report to Principal Williams-James, the teacher who would eventually be fired relayed a direct conversation she had with students about the coach’s alleged parties. The students she was speaking with named Drayton, and other students “jumped in” to the conversation to confirm.
Several days later, Williams-James received another notice about Drayton — this time from a different teacher.
In the email, the teacher described hearing conversations surrounding a recent party students said staff members attended during which a student was severely inebriated and got attacked by partygoers.
The teacher said in an interview that she overheard multiple students say that Drayton and another dean were at this party. In the email, the teacher relayed a part of the conversation in which the kids describe a girl disappearing into a room with several Sac High football players.
“It was a very scary conversation to hear,” the teacher said in an interview with The Bee.
Although the email describes overhearing these conversations among students, she said in an interview that some female students privately confided in her and another teacher that they had attended parties with alcohol at Drayton’s house.
“These young ladies were telling us specifically about what was happening,” she said.
In the following month, the teacher who would eventually be fired filed two more written reports about discussions of parties with staff present among students, and requested an update on the proceedings of the investigation. Around this time, she also enlisted the help of the Sacramento City Teachers Association, the teachers union for Sacramento City Unified.
“As a female staff member hearing these allegations of a man on campus and then seeing him on campus currently still interacting with the students is concerning,” she wrote in a Sept. 28, 2023 email.
The teacher also details a conversation she had with students claiming there were staff members at a party.
“Specifically I was told by (redacted) and (redacted) that there is a picture of (redacted) at a party where girls are twerking around him and that it got passed around (sent to lots of kids’ phones) last year because all of the kids thought it was ‘funny,’” she wrote.
On Oct. 25, 2023, the same teacher wrote her final report to Williams-James. It is just a few sentences long.
“(Redacted) and I overheard students talking about a party at (redacted) house this past weekend. We don’t remember who said it, but they also said there is another one this weekend,” the message states.
The Sacramento Dragons varsity football team played against Capital Christian Oct. 20, 2023, in an away game, beating them 46-38. The following weekend they would defeat the Rio Americano Raiders in a home game, 48-26.
The last messages about inappropriate parties that The Bee obtained were sent in November 2023. A third teacher overheard students say on Oct. 28, 2023, that they had attended a party at Drayton’s home after a recent football game. According to the Nov. 1, 2023 email, students were drinking so much that they had to get a rideshare or a ride from Drayton to get home.
“I just wanted to inform you of the inappropriate behavior I have been overhearing from multiple students, not just one or two,” she wrote to Williams-James and Ruda.
How St. Hope administrators handled the investigation
Hiestand, a lawyer for St. Hope, was consulted in October to begin investigating the claims. His Jan. 4, 2024, investigation summary said that “nearly all the reports stem from student conversations (redacted) overheard and not from first-hand knowledge,” referring to the teacher who would eventually be terminated.
In a section labeled methodology and timeline, Hiestand lists the documents reviewed and all other actions taken during the investigation. The list includes reports made by one teacher but none from the two other teachers involved. It is unclear whether or not Hiestand was given these emails to review. Hiestand denied The Bee’s request for an interview.
The teacher who made the bulk of the reports was formally interviewed by Hiestand, according to the records that St. Hope provided. The two other teachers said they were not interviewed as a part of the investigation.
When asked why these two teachers were not interviewed despite reporting knowledge of allegations against Drayton, St. Hope Human Resources Manager Sabrina Jaquez initially said the three teachers’ reports were nearly identical.
“If I can remember correctly, the emails that were sent by the other staff members were almost an exact duplicate, or I should say they were an exact duplicate of the original email from the original employee,” Jaquez said. “So it was almost as if those employees copy and pasted what that original employee had sent.”
But the three teachers’ emails were sent over a three-month period and described separate, distinct events, each taking place in their own classrooms. They share very little similar language.
When it was pointed out to Jaquez that the emailed reports The Bee had obtained were not similar, she said that they had not been considered because the two teachers did not respond to inquiries about which students were involved. But the teacher who wrote the Sept. 27, 2023, email included student names, and the teacher who wrote the Nov. 1, 2023 email provided student names in response to an inquiry by Williams-James, the two teachers told The Bee.
Jaquez said all of the names of students that were given were interviewed, and that the three teachers’ reports contained the same names.
Seven students were interviewed by Jaquez and Hiestand. She said all the students consented to the interview without hesitation. Parents were not notified that their children were being interviewed, which Jaquez said is standard practice.
California Teachers Association representative Brittoni Ward sought a status report on the investigation on Nov. 2, 2023, asking if St. Hope reported the situation to protective services. She also wrote that the teacher was filing a claim with HR that she was being harassed by other staff members in retaliation for reporting the conversations about partying to administrators.
Another staff member wrote to Ruda Dec. 14, 2023 that the teacher was discussing concerns about the investigation and said she was being harassed.
“She explained details of sexual misconduct allegations, inappropriate student interactions/substance use with students, and inappropriate actions outside of the workplace for this staff member. She expressed frustration to (redacted) about harassment she’s received due to disclosing these concerns, treatment in conversations, and a lack of follow up on her serious concerns,” her email read.
How reporting parties led to one teacher’s termination
Ultimately, the seven students interviewed by Hiestand said they knew of parties where coaches may have or did attend, but that they did not personally witness wrongdoing, according to the final report. Drayton and the other named staff members denied hosting parties for students, except for the birthday pool party.
In his Jan. 8, 2024, investigation summary report, Hiestand wrote that the situation became “more and more convoluted due to additional overheard student statements by (redacted).” Hiestand also states that the teacher chose to notify Sac High administration of these allegations instead of Child Protective Services.
In addition to investigating allegations of drinking with students, Hiestand was tasked with investigating claims of harassment between two parties: the coaches and deans accused of partying with students and a teacher who reported them. The former party raised harassment claims against the teacher for “making unfounded allegations and spreading rumors.”
This section of the report is heavily redacted despite The Bee’s lawyer arguing that it is responsive to The Bee’s records request.
All staff members interviewed for the investigation were instructed to keep proceedings confidential, but those accused became aware of who made the allegations against them early on in the process, according to Hiestand’s report.
“Instead of letting the investigation run its course and keep matters to themselves, it is plainly obvious they shared this information with others,” the report reads. “Instead of acting like responsible adults, some coaches, deans, and hall monitors chose to act like the very students they are expected to set examples for.”
Hiestand said that because the allegations made against deans and coaches could not be corroborated, he could not recommend any discipline or administrative action. In regards to various harassment complaints, he made five recommendations that have been redacted from the original report.
Parsons and Jaquez both declined to say whether any deans or coaches faced any discipline.
On March 25, 2024, the teacher received a termination letter.
The teacher is cited, among other things, for a “failure to create a culture of respect and equity,” saying that she made “ongoing efforts to undermine colleagues by threatening or creating a hostile or abusive work environment.”
Her “making and sharing false assertions or reports against colleagues or students” that she knew “or should have known were untrue” were also given as a reason for termination, while at the same time being accused of failing to report incidents of reasonably suspected child abuse to authorities.
Eleven St. Hope teachers wrote in a complaint letter that the fired teacher was falsely accused of failing to immediately report suspected child abuse.
They also expressed concern about the school’s responsibility to report issues to CPS. The letter said that educators who were unsure of their responsibility were not given guidance or support about what to do.
At least two of the teachers who filed reports say that when they contacted CPS, they were told, because the allegations involve the school, an administrator would need to request an investigation.
St. Hope’s investigation concluded but concerns remain
In the St. Hope teachers’ May 2, 2024 letter to the district’s administrator in charge of charter school oversight, Amanda Goldman, they share “grave concerns” about the condition faced by students and staff at St. Hope schools. Among a number of complaints about leadership, misuse of public funds and poor school conditions, they condemned St. Hope administrators’ handling of the party investigation.
“Yet there has been no evidence of any such investigation, and at least one teacher that reported these and other issues to the administration was left to endure months of retaliatory harassment by Deans,” the teachers wrote. “Other educators have reported similar retaliation from Deans about various issues. This only adds to an already toxic work environment that has led teachers to isolate themselves in their rooms, have stress related illnesses, and has even resulted in the resignations of courageous educators.”
In a separate letter to Goldman signed by several St. Hope parents, they expressed concern about St. Hope’s “failure” to recruit and retain quality teachers, pointing to the high number of teachers that did not have a valid teaching credential.
“Quality teachers are being terminated mid-year for what appears to be retaliation for highlighting and informing parents of grave concerns on campus,” the letter reads.
When asked about the teachers’ allegations of retaliation, Parsons said that most of the teachers who signed the letter did not work at St. Hope at the time. However, all but one of the letter writers stated in the letter that they were employed by St. Hope in the 2023-24 school year.
Asked to respond to the allegations that St. Hope administrators retaliated against a teacher, Parons said “That is 100% not true.”
Did St. Hope misrepresent the investigation to Sacramento City Unified?
Established in 1856, Sac High is the second-oldest public high school in California. In June 2003, the district contentiously decommissioned the high school due to poor academic performance. The school served, and continues to serve, a majority Black and socioeconomically disadvantaged population that primarily resides in Oak Park.
Since Sac High was reopened under St. Hope’s charter in September 2003, academic performance and graduation rates have improved while enrollment has drastically decreased. Ten years ago, the high school enrolled 926 students — in 2023-24, the number was only 355.
St. Hope’s operational issues bubbled over in the past couple of years, prompting the district to conduct a third-party audit of the charter school’s finances, governance and operations after the district received the aforementioned complaints from St. Hope parents and teachers.
The district took interest in the investigation because of the teachers’ allegations of misconduct and because of Hiestand’s involvement — the lawyer’s dual roles as St. Hope legal counsel and board member of related nonprofit St. Hope Endowment was a concern of the auditor’s.
As part of the audit process, the district requested a number of records from St. Hope, including copies of employee complaints made to St. Hope leaders, copies of written reports following the completion of investigation and records related to employee complaints about harassment and retaliation among staff members.
The school did not turn over all the documents responsive to the district’s request. District spokesperson Alexander Goldberg confirmed that the district received the Sept. 27 and Sept. 28, 2023 complaints, a termination letter and a redacted portion of the investigation report.
But St. Hope administrators don’t believe they misrepresented the number of teachers who made complaints to the district, despite characterizing the investigation as only involving one disgruntled employee in the school’s corrective action plan that was shared with the district’s board, who would ultimately make the call of whether or not to renew Sac High’s charter.
St. Hope administrators said that district staff were aware that it was three teachers, not just one, who wrote to school leadership about alleged misconduct. Goldberg said that the two redacted email complaints they received did not contain employee names, but “would likely indicate there was more than one person” who made the reports.
“Their investigator found that the allegations made by a former employee were not substantiated or corroborated,” Goldberg said. “As an authorizer for an independent charter, this is the extent of what we would typically investigate in this matter of this nature. At the time of this investigation, the focus was on determining which aspects of the list of complaints fell within the purview of the authorizer and rose to the level of notice of concern.”
Sacramento City Unified board member Taylor Kayatta declined to comment on The Bee’s findings about St. Hope’s investigation into the allegations, saying that the matter was not before the board during the charter renewal process. Board President Jasjit Singh and the two other current board members who voted on the charter renewal — Tara Jeane and Chinua Rhodes — did not return direct requests for comment.
The district’s chief communications officer answered on the district’s behalf, saying that Sacramento City Unified did its legal due diligence as a charter authorizer.
“Sacramento City Unified followed state law with regard to our review of the St. HOPE personnel investigation and with our decision to renew the St. HOPE schools’ charters with conditions. We take our responsibility as a charter authorizer seriously and any suggestion that the District was derelict in the performance of that role is patently false.”
He also said that the district expects St. Hope to meet the conditions that will be set in their new charter agreement to be completed at the end of June.
“We will continue to engage in meaningful oversight and provide any necessary support to the school community,” he said.
This story was originally published May 23, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
