A new civil lawsuit accuses Folsom Cordova Unified School District employees of failing to stop alleged sexual abuse by a longtime teacher at Folsom Middle School. The complaint centers on the 2008-09 school year and raises fresh questions about what school staff knew — and what they did, or failed to do, after concerns surfaced.
According to The Sacramento Bee, a former student alleges Steven Kester isolated the student behind a locked door before the school day and sexually abused the student. The lawsuit also claims a guidance counselor ignored the student’s request to be removed from Kester’s class, while other faculty and staff failed to intervene.
The new filing adds another chapter to allegations involving Kester, who worked for the district for nearly five decades. Earlier Sacramento Bee reporting said four former students accused him of grooming and abuse at Cordova Meadows Elementary, Folsom Middle School and Folsom Cordova High School between 1998 and 2021.
Kester, now 80, was hired as a full-time teacher in 1976, retired in 2012 and later returned to the district’s substitute-teacher pool, according to that earlier report. He was arrested in 2021 after investigators accused him of multiple felony counts involving child sexual abuse.
The criminal case has since moved far beyond the pretrial stage. Sacramento County court records show Kester pleaded to charges on December 8, 2025, and was sentenced on January 16, 2026; the case is listed as disposed.
California Law Opened A Wider Civil Window
The lawsuit relies on the legal landscape created by California Assembly Bill 218, which changed the time limits for many childhood sexual assault lawsuits. Under the California Legislature’s text, survivors generally may sue within 22 years of reaching adulthood or within five years of discovering a related psychological injury, whichever is later. The law also permits claims against institutions when they knew, or should have known, about conduct creating a risk of abuse.
The Bee’s latest account says the district faces another related civil complaint filed in 2025 involving alleged abuse of a special-needs student, with that case still pending. FCUSD previously said Kester’s employee file contained no arrest reports or disciplinary action and declined to comment on pending litigation, as reported by The Sacramento Bee.
The allegations in the new complaint have not been tested at trial, and the civil case will now turn on evidence about what Kester allegedly did, what school employees observed or were told, and whether the district acted reasonably to protect students.
