{"id":425076,"date":"2025-12-04T22:39:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T22:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/425076\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T22:39:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T22:39:14","slug":"kissing-club-at-private-l-a-school-leads-to-bullying-and-sexual-assault-lawsuit-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/425076\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Kissing Club’ at private L.A. school leads to bullying and sexual assault, lawsuit claims"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The parents of an 8-year-old girl are suing a Los Angeles-area private school for allegedly failing to take action against a \u201cKissing Club\u201d that was started by older students who bullied and sexually assaulted their daughter. <\/p>\n

Pantea Kipnis, the child\u2019s mother, said in a statement to The Times that she came forward to raise awareness so other families wouldn\u2019t suffer. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust because you send your kids to a prestigious private school [doesn\u2019t mean] they will necessarily be safe there,\u201d Kipnis said.<\/p>\n

At the time of the alleged bullying and sexual abuse, the child was a 7-year-old student at Sierra Canyon School in Chatsworth<\/a>, a private college preparatory school for students in pre-K through 12th grade. The family\u2019s attorney, Samuel Dordulian, said at a Tuesday news conference that the child was no longer enrolled in the school. <\/p>\n

The Kipnis family is suing for unspecified damages and attorney fees. <\/p>\n

The bullying by older students included name-calling, \u201cpeeking through the bathroom stall while the child used the bathroom\u201d and pressuring others to commit sexual acts, according to the complaint filed Monday. During school hours, several 7- and 8-year-old female students would gather inside the bathrooms to participate in the Kissing Club, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Two 8-year-olds pressured, intimidated and bullied the younger students to join the club, including the then-7-year-old victim, according to Monday\u2019s suit. The child was pressured to kiss the others in the club and forced to kiss and touch the genital areas of the two older girls, the lawsuit alleges. <\/p>\n

During an internal investigation, it was found that some of the acts were recorded on the girls\u2019 phones, according to the lawsuit. The suit claims that a teacher took one of the students\u2019 phones and sent the videos of the acts to herself and showed them to other staff.<\/p>\n

Before the escalation of the Kissing Club, Kipnis said she had contacted Sierra Canyon School to report the bullying.<\/p>\n

According to Monday\u2019s filing, Kipnis also asked her daughter\u2019s teacher to \u201ckeep an eye on her to keep her safe\u201d and suggested bathroom monitoring. <\/p>\n

To Kipnis\u2019 knowledge, no actions were taken to protect her child from further bullying, according to the complaint. <\/p>\n

The lawsuit claims that Sierra Canyon School eventually became aware of the Kissing Club and its activities but did not notify Kipnis, her husband, Max Kipnis, or the police.<\/p>\n

Neither parent had any idea that their daughter was being assaulted at school until Kipnis \u201cwas told by another parent whose child was also assaulted by the same girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

The parents are suing the school for failing to report their daughter\u2019s alleged assault under California Department of Education\u2019s mandatory reporting laws<\/a> that require school staff to report suspected child abuse. <\/p>\n

Sierra Canyon did not respond to The Times\u2019 request for comment before publication. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The parents of an 8-year-old girl are suing a Los Angeles-area private school for allegedly failing to take…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":425077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[198052,12854,198053,1741,1582,276,4471,3603,198048,198049,2961,198050,224,5337,9548,198054,6976,198055,10409,198051],"class_list":{"0":"post-425076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-7-year-old-student","9":"tag-attorney","10":"tag-bathroom-stall","11":"tag-bullying","12":"tag-ca","13":"tag-california","14":"tag-child","15":"tag-daughter","16":"tag-kipnis","17":"tag-kissing-club","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-lawsuit-claim","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-monday","23":"tag-other-family","24":"tag-parent","25":"tag-sexual-act","26":"tag-sexual-assault","27":"tag-sierra-canyon-school"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115663704312071361","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}