Parents seeking $2.5M in Goodyear teacher sex case

They say school didn’t properly report relationship

Parents of a West Valley teen are seeking $2.5 million from a Goodyear elementary school, saying officials failed to properly report the sexual relationship a sixth-grade teacher was having with their 13-year-old son.

Lawyers representing the alleged victim on Monday filed a notice of claim outlining their case against the Las Brisas Academy Elementary School. They allege the school’s principal failed to properly report upon first learning of the relationship between Brittany Zamora and a student who reportedly had sex on campus and exchanged explicit messages between February and March.

“It was preventable,” said Michael Medina, an attorney representing the family from Tempe law firm Davis Miles McGuire Gardner. “We want to hold the school district accountable so this never happens again in the future.”

Notices of claim are precursors to lawsuits in Arizona. They outline part of a case against an entity and stipulate how much money alleged victims are seeking to settle out of court — in this instance, $2 million on behalf of the teen and $250,000 to each of his parents.

The 26-page document spells out alleged missteps the school made by failing to properly investigate the teacher’s relationship with her student, even after other students raised concerns in early February — days or weeks before the sexual conduct and Zamora’s ultimate arrest.

The claim says the principal did not examine an online instruction and communication platform — Class Craft — where Zamora and the boy’s inappropriate talks began. If the principal had checked that history, he would have seen where Zamora gave the boy her personal cell phone number and first engaged in inappropriate communication.

That spiraled into more “aggressive” conversations and “grooming,” both inperson and via social media, according to the claim.

Three students in early February prepared written statements expressing concern about Zamora’s relationship with the boy, attorneys wrote, citing the principal’s handwritten notes, as previously reported by

More than six weeks before her arrest, they said Zamora was “dating” a student, treated him favorably in class, gave him warnings and let him “off the hook” while other students received detention.

“We did investigate,” said Richard Rundhaug, the school district’s interim superintendent, in a previous interview. “We determined there were some elements of favoritism, and we gave the teacher some very specific direction on not allowing that favoritism to continue, and then we monitored to make sure those directions were followed.”

A representative from the school district’s superintendent’s office did not return a call Tuesday from seeking comment about the notice of claim.

The Arizona Republic. The Republic