A Teacher Was Fired For Touching Students, Then A Redwood City School Hired Him: Report

REDWOOD CITY, CA — A teacher fired from a Fairfield high school after more than a dozen students accused him of unwanted touching is now teaching at an elementary school in Redwood City, following years of limited state oversight that critics say left students at multiple schools vulnerable, according to a report by KQED and ProPublica.

Jason Agan, 47, has been teaching at Clifford School in the Redwood City School District since 2022 and received tenure there in 2024, KQED reported.

Agan spent 17 years at Angelo Rodriguez High School in Fairfield before at least 11 students and one parent filed written complaints against him in 2018, accusing him of massaging students' shoulders, making comments about girls' clothing, and creating an environment uncomfortable enough that some students avoided asking him for help or speaking up in class, KQED reported. The Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District moved to fire him in early 2019. An independent state panel later ruled he was "unfit to teach," writing that "the likelihood of recurrence is high," according to KQED.

Despite that finding, California's Commission on Teacher Credentialing took nearly 500 days to act — and when it did, it suspended Agan's license for just seven days. His credential record listed no explanation for the discipline, only a red flag icon.

During that window, Agan was hired at a Sacramento-area charter school, Ephraim Williams College Prep Middle School. Within months of returning to in-person instruction there, an eighth grader reported that he had touched her lower back and, after she asked him to stop, returned and placed his hand on her shoulder, KQED reported. The school issued a written warning but did not terminate him, according to KQED.

Agan resigned from that school in 2022 after being offered a role supporting other teachers rather than leading his own classroom. He then applied to and was hired by the Redwood City School District.

Redwood City School District Deputy Superintendent Wendy Kelly declined to say whether the district knew of the accusations at Agan's two previous schools. She told KQED the district relies on the state credentialing database and calls to candidates' immediate supervisors when vetting hires, and that she was pleased the state suspension had been only seven days.

"I have to trust that when the CTC reinstates the teacher, that the issue has been either resolved, learned from, there's been consequences in place," Kelly told KQED.

Critics say that trust is misplaced. Unlike licensing boards for doctors, nurses, police officers, and lawyers in California — all of which make disciplinary reasons publicly accessible — the teacher credentialing agency lists only that a sanction occurred, not why.

"If our job as teachers is to keep children safe, we have to be held accountable for things we do that could harm them," Alicia DeRollo, a former commissioner on the credentialing agency, told KQED.

The KQED and ProPublica investigation identified at least 67 cases statewide in which the state did not revoke educators' licenses after school districts found they had sexually harassed students or committed other sexual misconduct. At least 14 of those educators were subsequently rehired by other schools.

Agan did not respond to multiple requests for comment. He has previously denied any sexual motivation, telling a state panel he was offering students encouragement — not massages, according to KQED.