San Bruno Park School District hit with lawsuit after teacher found guilty of molesting students

SAN BRUNO, Calif. - Four families announced a civil lawsuit Wednesday against the San Bruno Park School District. The lawsuit comes days after a former teacher, 34-year-old Jeremy Yeh, was found guilty on 17 felony child molestation charges. The families say the district failed to stop Yeh from sexually abusing his students from 2016 to 2023. 

The victims’ families say the San Bruno Park School District should be held responsible for what happened to their children. They say the district first knew about his inappropriate behavior back in 2017 and did nothing about it.  

"Our parents feel that they placed their trust in the school district and trusted them to do the right thing when they received information, and that trust was violated," said Valerie Rose, an attorney representing one of the victims.  

What we know:

The families say the San Bruno Park School District should be held responsible after their children were sexually molested by a teacher, 34-year-old Jeremy Yeh, who worked at Allen Elementary when he was arrested in 2023. Yeh was found guilty of 17 felony child molestation charges last Friday. Attorneys representing the families held a press conference on Wednesday. 

"They had a report of abuse by Mr. Yeh and ignored that, which allowed Mr. Yeh to continue to be employed at that school and go on to abuse several other girls," said Robert Thompson, an attorney representing two of the victims. 

The complaint says that Yeh sexually abused 1st and 2nd grade girls from 2016 until 2023, despite students at El Crystal Elementary School, which is now closed, alerting administrators for the first time in 2017. Students reported that Yeh pulled down a female student’s pants while hugging her and another female student said she was raped. The victims also said their complaints were ignored, and they were accused of lying. 

"Based on our preliminary understanding from documents yielded from a public records act request, there was a report from students to San Bruno Unified School Dist. Administrators of inappropriate sexual contact between Mr. Yeh and a student. It’s our understanding that administrators failed to act in response to that," said Rose.  

The backstory:

The lawsuit claims then Principal Jeanne Elliot at El Crystal and Supt. Cheryl Olson covered up and concealed Yeh’s behavior and failed to comply with mandatory reporting to law enforcement. Two parents involved in the lawsuit spoke on Wednesday during the press conference through an interpreter. Their names were not given to protect the identities of their children. 

"My daughter should’ve never been a victim to this. She was very young; eight years old, and he played with her mind."

"Anger and frustration because if they had taken their job seriously to protect the children, especially the administration, this would not have happened." 

The families’ attorneys say that Yeh engaged in grooming tactics. He offered his classroom to students in the mornings and during recess to be alone with them and contacted students outside of school through online gaming platforms.

"We strongly believe that there are other girls out there that were abused by Mr. Yeh. We hope by filing this lawsuit that they will feel empowered to come forward and tell their stories," said Thompson.  

The attorneys said the administrators named in the lawsuit are not listed as individual defendants because the district is responsible for its employees. 

Yeh is facing up to 425 in prison and will be sentenced on April 25th. 

KTVU reached out to San Bruno Park School District, but didn’t hear back from them in time for this report. 

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