In March 2015, Berkeley High School chemistry teacher Matthew Bissell received a letter from the principal stating that Bissell's inappropriate behavior towards female students was unacceptable. Records show that from as early as 2006, school administrators addressed complaints that Bissell made inappropriate comments and stared at female students. Between 2015 and 2018, he received multiple written reprimands for unprofessional behavior and sexual harassment. Despite these records, Bissell continued teaching at BHS for years. In 2021, the district substantiated allegations from a former student who reported repeated sexual misconduct occurring between 1999 and 2003, leading to Bissell’s removal from the classroom.
The disciplinary records became public only after Berkeleyside requested them under the Public Records Act and threatened legal action, revealing that some complaints described by former students could not be located in district files. The district ultimately reached a separation agreement with Bissell that allowed him to resign while on paid leave, and the agreement included confidentiality provisions limiting what district officials could publicly disclose. The case drew attention to how complaints of misconduct are handled, documented, and escalated within the district, as well as the length of time between initial concerns and formal action. “It can take years, especially with tenured teachers,” Jasmina Viteskic, Berkeley Unified School District's Title IX coordinator, said. Each investigation has to follow a clear step-by-step process, one that can feel prolonged for everyone involved.
Since the Bissell case, the district has made some changes, having established the Superintendent’s Gender Equity and Sexual Harassment Advisory Committee, and developed new policy and staff training on how to maintain appropriate adult to student interactions. While there have been no reported cases of the same severity of unacceptable behavior for the past five years, BHS students describe continued unfair and harmful treatment from teachers, and experiencing the complicated reporting process that follows.
Concerns persist about delayed action and limited transparency are not confined to the past. Staff members are required to report any “known or suspected instances of child abuse or neglect,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union. “We are mandated reporters,” a BHS teacher who will be mentioned in this article under the pseudonym Sinclair, said, “If we hear anything, even secondhand, we have to report it to the administration.” After a report is made to the administration, investigation processes are always triggered, no matter the severity of the report.
A lack of transparency can feel frustrating for anyone involved in filing a complaint. But legally, administrators are bound by confidentiality and personnel laws. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act protects student reports and records, enforcing that identifiable student information be withheld from the public without parental consent. “We do most of the investigation before the respondent even knows,” Viteskic said. In order to prevent retaliation and allow proper evidence to be collected, BUSD intentionally limits the information accessible to the public.
The Bissell case is not just a closed chapter in BHS history. Research shows that educator misconduct is both more common and more underreported than many assume.
A PubMed study found that 11.7 percent of students reported experiencing at least one form of educator misconduct during grades K-12, with most perpetrators being male. Some analyses estimate that nearly 90 percent of victims do not report abuse at the time, often due to fear or shame. These statistics suggest that what is officially documented in district files likely represents only a fraction of what students experience. “I don’t think the number of complaints represents the number of incidents,” Viteskic said.
Not all complaints rise to the level of criminal misconduct, but BHS students say that even behavior that does not meet a legal threshold can create lasting harm. An anonymous BHS student who will be refered to as "Patty" described a class environment where students felt belittled. “A lot of students were struggling with learning in that class. (Our teacher) wasn’t being very kind to people and was definitely making my classmates uncomfortable ... This happened to the point where no one would even raise their hands to talk in class,” Patty said. Fellow BHS students reported teachers for many other reasons: being shamed about learning accommodations, publicly reprimanded, receiving targeted remarks, and humiliated for crying.
Students are put in a difficult position when misconduct is “just” unkindness. “It’s hard to know when to speak up since it's not like (my teacher is) doing anything to such an extreme extent, but at the same time it really does feel quite bad,” Patty said. Even among educators, the line between concerning behavior and reportable misconduct can be unclear. “Sometimes the nuance gets slippery,” Sinclair said, “It’s hard to differentiate between an incident and weird behavior." However, for Sinclair, the threshold is simple: “Anytime a student feels uncomfortable with an adult, that constitutes something." BHS Principal Juan Raygoza also emphasized this. “Every student report leads to action,” Raygoza said, “What that action is, of course, varies.”
Often when students do decide to speak up, the response they receive can feel unsatisfactory. Anonymous BHS student "Daisy" said that when she sought help from a counselor about a harmful classroom environment, she was told the only solution was to drop the class, which didn’t feel like a possibility due to her concern of harming her college transcript. “When I brought up these concerns to my counselor and suggested hiring a new teacher, (the counselor) said, ‘No, there’s no one you can talk to for that,’” Daisy said.
Counselors say these classroom dynamics can have clear academic and emotional consequences. Tiffany Liew, a BHS counselor, explained that when students feel unsafe, avoidance often follows. “When you don’t feel safe in a classroom it can affect your self-esteem, it can trigger your anxiety,” she said, “We start to see students not turning in homework, avoiding class, or struggling on exams we know they’re capable of.”
BUSD has formal procedures for reporting misconduct. Complaints can be made to administrators, Title IX coordinators, or district officials. Additionally, there is a complaint form accessible on the Berkeley Public Schools website. In theory, reports should trigger documentation, investigation, and when necessary, corrective action. However, students and parents describe a different reality: delayed follow-ups, vague updates, and informal resolutions. The confidentiality laws that the district is bound by often limit their ability to provide substantial updates during ongoing investigations.
In practice, school counselors often act as the first point of contact in that process. Rather than immediately escalating concerns, Liew said students are typically encouraged to start with direct communication. “The most important thing is to try to talk to your teacher directly,” she said. From there, concerns may be escalated step by step, and only later become formal incident reports that prompt investigation.
For Sinclair, students receiving delayed responses from administration raise broader concerns about institutional priorities. “It’s not doing enough,” Sinclair said, “We’re protecting the wrong people.” Their concerns echo criticisms raised in the Bissell case, where documented complaints accumulated over years before action was taken. The tension between student safety and legal protections for staff is a constant presence. “We have an obligation to students but also to give staff due process,” Viteskic said.
Students facing teacher misconduct are not necessarily looking for teachers to experience punitive outcomes. Some, such as Daisy, simply want classrooms where they feel safe asking questions and supported in learning. “Students want to learn,” Daisy said, “If teachers can’t teach, then there needs to be a better solution.”