The superintendent of Peoria Unified School District (PUSD) is leaving next month amid rumors that administration failed to act on complaints of teachers sexually abusing students.
The Arizona Daily Independent (ADI) has learned that Superintendent Kenneth Christopher (KC) Somers submitted his application to join another district in Colorado around December 2025 when the Peoria Police Department delivered a report of nearly 200 pages detailing the sexual abuse allegations against Centennial High School teachers Haley Beck and Angela Burlaka.
That report contained claims that rumors of Beck and Burlaka preceded law enforcement involvement by months without administrators taking action.
The PUSD governing board accepted Somers’ resignation unanimously in February. Somers will depart June 13 and begin his new role in Colorado in July.
“He just happened to resign when all this broke out,” the source told ADI. “The kids deserve help.”
Somers issued a letter to parents last week defending district officials for not reporting the allegations about Beck and Burlaka based on a later assessment by Peoria police. Somers said the district was acting in accordance with the facts, law, and entrusted responsibilities.
“Their conclusion was that the information available at the time concerns were initially raised did not meet the legal threshold for reasonable suspicion of abuse,” stated Somers. “When information later developed that met that threshold, law enforcement was notified and the investigation proceeded.”
Somers’ exit wasn’t the only leadership shakeup the district experienced.
On Tuesday the governing board voted to unseat its president, Heather Rooks, alleging she violated board policy by requesting an additional investigation into rumored mandatory reporting failures. The board voted to elect member Jeff Tobey as its new president.
Those rumors say school officials knew about the teacher predators months before police received an online tip from a concerned parent last August about Beck.
In addition to teaching and coaching soccer at Centennial High School, Beck graduated from there. Beck was the two-time captain of the Centennial High School girls soccer team prior to leaving for Northern Arizona University.
The tip about Burlaka’s alleged criminal behavior came earlier. The victim’s grandmother notified law enforcement last July about nude videos Burlaka recorded of herself and sent to the student.
Burlaka taught at the school for 25 years leading up to the allegations against her.
Investigations into the two educators remain ongoing; officials have stated that there may be more than one victim in these cases.
During a candidate forum in February for his new district, Somers promised to uphold the integrity and ethics of the office by being fair, consistent, transparent, and trusting.
“When I think about integrity and ethics, really what I perceive or I believe you’re probably asking for is fairness, consistency, transparency and trust,” said Somers. “That’s especially important when decisions are difficult and at times unpopular. So to me, integrity is not truly about words or just what we intend. It’s really about patterns and behavior over time.”
When the Eagle County School District in Eagle, Colorado announced Somers as their next superintendent later that month, Somers issued a statement to his new district promising to “listen and learn” from the Eagle County communities.
“I enter this role with humility and anticipation,” said Somers. “My priority will be to listen and learn from communities across the valley and to understand our strengths, challenges, and aspirations.”
Somers came to PUSD from Colorado, where he was previously the superintendent for the Lewis-Palmer School District in Monument, Colorado for nearly five years.
Somers joined PUSD in 2024.
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