Long Beach Unified has closed its investigations into accusations of discrimination and retaliation against Black students and counselors at Lakewood High School, concluding most were unfounded and refusing to release details of any complaints it determined were legitimate.
Since at least last school year, counselors and students have made escalating complaints about administrators at Lakewood, whom they said were dismissive of concerns about disparate treatment of Black students and staff.
They voiced those complaints publicly at an October school board meeting, where former Lakewood counselor Naazir Anyabwile said he was retaliated against when he refused to substantiate false allegations that a Black coworker was “hostile,” “angry,” “slamming things” and posed a “safety threat.” Anyabwile, who is Black, said the school’s principal began raising concerns about his performance after the incident. At the end of the 2024-25 school year, his contract was not renewed, which the district attributed to a “reduction in staffing.”
In support of Anyabwile, about 10 students walked out in October and demanded the school reinstate him. After the walkout, students told the Long Beach Post they had been both intimidated and ignored by the school’s administration and described the school culture as a “hostile environment.” In response, several parents of Black students filed complaints to the school district.
The Post filed public records requests for documents related to these allegations from students and staff. In reply, the district said the “majority of the complaint(s) were not substantiated,” including those made against the school’s principal, which resulted in no findings. An investigation of another administrator, the head counselor, resulted in “limited findings related to professionalism, which were addressed through non-disciplinary corrective guidance,” the district wrote to the Post.
The district declined to release copies of investigative findings and other records, citing employee confidentiality. While there are exemptions in public records laws to prevent unreasonable invasions of privacy for public employees such as teachers and counselors, in the case of substantiated findings, “if the public agency finds that misconduct actually occurred, those records have to be disclosed,” said David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition — meaning LBUSD inappropriately withheld records containing substantiated findings.
The principal and head counselor who were subjects of the complaints did not respond to emails from the Post or deferred to the school district, which said it “remains committed to fostering a safe, respectful, and inclusive school and work environment.”
The investigations and lack of findings have left the students and their parents frustrated. Suzie Sanders filed a complaint alleging that her daughter, a junior at Lakewood, had been interrogated by the school’s administration following the walkout, as well as wrongly accused of smoking in the staff restroom. Sanders wrote that her daughter’s treatment was reflective of “systemic and structural racism that continues to exist within LBUSD.”
Sanders’ complaint resulted in no substantiated findings of discrimination, according to records she shared with the Post, what she called a discouraging outcome. Now, they feel like they have exhausted the avenues for accountability at their disposal, and they plan to leave the district for her daughter’s senior year. “Unfortunately, the problem will never be resolved,” Sanders said.