Seattle Public Schools to pay $3 million to student sexually abused by soccer coach

The sexual abuse started in 2016, when the 15-year-old female student was a sophomore at Ballard High School, and lasted until 2018 when the abuse was discovered. The student said that she was abused weekly, according to the lawsuit filed in 2020.

The lawsuit claimed that Seattle Public Schools is liable for the abuse because the district failed to protect the student from the coach who was previously fired from a different high school in the district over similar allegations.

Attorneys found the coach, Meghan Miller, was first hired by Seattle Public Schools in 2007 as an assistant girls' soccer coach and basketball coach at Roosevelt High School, Kiro 7 News reports.

"During her two-year tenure at Roosevelt, the coach demonstrated what her direct supervisor described as 'a pattern of predatory behavior' and repeated boundary violations with students that ultimately led to her termination in 2009," according Dixon Law Firm PLLC and Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC.

Seattle Public Schools rehired Miller in 2010 to be an assistant girls' soccer coach at Ballard High School, and began to work with special needs students as an instructional assistant in 2015.

Meghan Miller was arrested in 2018 and charged with child molestation in the third-degree, and two counts of sexual misconduct with a minor. Miller plead guilty in 2019 and is now a registered sex offender.