A TikTok video accusing a Tustin Unified School District (TUSD) teacher and former union boss of soliciting a minor has led to his arrest and home assignment.
Roger Kavigan, 55, of Long Beach was placed on paid administrative leave from his job as a history teacher at Foothill High School in Tustin last month.
“This is bad and there are parents who have complained for years,” said Jackson Reese, California Policy Center vice president. “He thought of himself as untouchable and spoke as much. His job at the union enabled him to do terrible things and for people to not want to look into it or not want to look into the concerns of parents."
According to the Orange County (OC) Sheriff’s Department, which issued a mug shot, Kavigan had posed as a minor with intent to commit sexual assault and was subsequently booked into the OC jail.
"He was caught by a student actually showing up to a student's apartment," Reese added. "The intent was to have sex with the student is what the student alleges and it's actually the student's brother who caught him and said he had been catfishing him. He recorded him on video showing up to his apartment and then confronted him on video."
The video is posted online on the Gateway Pundit, which reported the statement below from TUSD Superintendent Mark Johnson.
"When this information came to the District’s attention, the District immediately informed Child Protective Services and law enforcement. Additionally, the District was provided with new evidence, which was shared with law enforcement as well," Johnson stated. "We have no information to suggest the allegations are related to the employee’s official duties as a teacher or that the alleged misconduct took place on campus; however, if true, the allegations are completely inconsistent with the District’s core values and would violate the trust the public puts in professional educators."
Kavigan was a teacher advisor for the Gay-Straight Alliance, a club charged with giving LGBTQIA+ youth a space to "open up and feel welcome and to educate anyone who wants to learn more about LGBTQIA+ history and current events," according to a school document posted online.
“I've heard secondhand of teachers or parents who have complained both about his political conversations as well as him being a very sexually focused teacher,” Reese told the Southern California Record. “Part of that makes some sense when you're the faculty advisor for the Gay Straight Alliance. Schools right now are really focused on the sexuality of our students and I think it's ridiculous.”
Kavigan was also president of the Tustin Educators Association until about 2020, according to Reese.
“The district thought of him as untouchable and that's, unfortunately, the relationship that teachers unions have with their districts is teachers’ unions exist to protect bad teachers and to enable bad teachers to continue teaching and being around children,” he added. “It's not because he's gay or because he is in that position of teacher advisor to the Gay Student Alliance that this happened, but it certainly made it go un unnoticed.”