Second Former Student Sues Junction City District Over Sexual Battery Allegations

A second former Junction City High School student sued the district, its school board, and teacher Mike Shultz in Lane County Circuit Court on March 27, alleging sexual battery, negligence, and discrimination and seeking $500,000 in damages.

The complaint, filed under the plaintiff's initials to protect her identity, alleges Shultz groped her during a school trip photo and asked her to call him "daddy." Shultz, who taught personal finance and marketing classes at the high school, resigned from the district in 2024, citing personal reasons, and no longer appears in the school's staff directory. He has not been criminally charged.

The March filing is the second civil suit naming Shultz and the district. A first lawsuit, filed in November 2025 by another former student and seeking $750,000, brought nearly identical allegations of sexual contact and grooming. That plaintiff attended Junction City High School from 2022 to 2024 and alleged Shultz worked to "sexually groom and control" her. Critically, she says she raised complaints about his behavior while still enrolled, and her lawsuit contends the school was aware of Shultz's conduct toward female students and kept him in the classroom regardless. Taken together, the two cases put the district's combined legal exposure at $1.25 million.

The timeline of what district leadership knew, and when, sits at the center of both complaints. Oregon law designates school employees as mandatory reporters, required to contact the state child abuse hotline or law enforcement directly when abuse is suspected, rather than routing concerns up an internal chain of command. The first plaintiff's allegations suggest that standard was not followed. Title IX separately requires districts to investigate and respond to known sexual misconduct by staff, creating a parallel federal accountability track the district will also need to answer.

Since the November filing, Junction City School District 69 has moved to have Shultz dismissed as a co-defendant in the first case. A hearing on that motion is scheduled for April 6 in Lane County Circuit Court. The district did not respond to a request for comment.

Discovery in both cases will build a documented public record of what administrators were told about Shultz, when they were told it, and what action followed. Depositions of district officials and school board members could clarify whether internal complaints generated the mandatory reports to state authorities that Oregon law requires, how closely Shultz was supervised in a role that included school trips, and whether the district's hiring and oversight protocols met state standards for educators working with minors. The Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission holds authority to separately investigate and revoke Shultz's teaching credentials based on evidence of misconduct, a process that runs independent of any civil case outcome.

Students and parents who need to report suspected misconduct by any school employee can call the Oregon child abuse hotline at 1-855-503-SAFE (7233), available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Complaints about a licensed Oregon educator can be submitted directly to the Teacher Standards and Practices Commission at complaints.tspc@tspc.oregon.gov.