California ‘teacher of the year’ sexually assaulted elementary school boys. She gets 30-year term

A San Diego County educator who once was named teacher of the year has been sentenced to 30 years to life for grooming and sexually assaulting two young boys in her elementary school classroom in National City.

Jacqueline Ma took advantage of her role as a fifth- and sixth-grade teacher at Lincoln Acres Elementary to manipulate her victims, luring them with gifts, special attention and even completing their homework, according to the San Diego County district attorney’s office.

When one of her victims was not allowed access to social media or personal electronic devices at home, she went so far as to set up an unsanctioned after-school program and directed him to message her through a school chat application, prosecutors said.

The 36-year-old teacher pleaded guilty in February to two counts of forcible lewd acts on a child, one count of a lewd act on a child, and one count of possessing child sexual abuse material.

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She was arrested by the National City Police Department in March 2023 after the mother of one of the victims reported inappropriate messages she found between her son and Ma on a family tablet. Investigators learned that Ma had groomed the boy for more than a year before sexually abusing him when he was 12 years old.

Ma performed sexual acts on the boy in her classroom over a three-month period, while his parents thought he was participating in an after-school basketball program, prosecutors said.

Investigators also discovered that she had groomed and sexually assaulted a second victim, an 11-year-old boy, in 2020.

“This defendant violated the trust she had with her students in the most extreme and traumatic way possible and her actions are despicable,” Dist. Atty. Summer Stephan said in a statement. “Her victims will have to deal with a lifetime of negative effects and her 30-year sentence is appropriate.”

Ma was named teacher of the year for the 2022-23 academic year by the San Diego County Office of Education. She earned her bachelor’s degree in biology and master’s degree in education from UC San Diego and had taught fifth and sixth grades in the National School District since 2013, according to a profile in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

She used her reputation as an above-and-beyond educator who was personally invested in her students’ success to gain the trust of victims’ parents, prosecutors said.

“No child deserves what this defendant did,” said Stephan. “I hope this sentence brings a measure of justice to the victims, their families and the community that was left reeling from this defendant’s crimes.”