PEORIA, Ariz. (KPHO/Gray News) — Two women who taught at a high school near Phoenix are accused of sexual misconduct with the same student.
Both teachers were placed on administrative leave in August 2025 after the allegations came to light. One resigned, and the other was fired by the school board.
The teachers could soon face charges after police resubmitted the cases to prosecutors Thursday.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office initially sent the cases back to law enforcement for additional investigation. No arrests have been made, but detectives said they believe there is enough evidence for charges.
What happened
According to a nearly 200-page police report, rumors of inappropriate teacher-student relationships circulated at Centennial High School in Peoria for months.
The teachers were identified as Haley Beck, 27, and Angela Burlaka, 47.
Burlaka worked at the school for 25 years, and Beck was hired in 2020.
Burlaka is accused of recording videos of herself while naked in which she said the student’s name. The videos ended up on the student’s phone.
The victim’s grandmother called authorities last July after seeing one of the videos, prompting the investigation.
Claims of sexual misconduct involving another teacher, 27-year-old Beck, surfaced shortly after. The police report states the victim’s mother admitted she knew her son was “having sex with a teacher named ‘Haley Beck.’”
The district’s statement of charges against Beck said she began grooming one of her students before he turned 18 in December 2024. Detectives believe the sexual harassment happened during his sophomore and junior years, when she was his psychology and sociology teacher.
Investigators claim Beck gave him special treatment in class, did his homework and erroneously improved his grades and attendance record.
Police said she gave him access to her car, bought him gifts, food, alcohol and drugs, and paid him more than $600, calling herself his “sugar momma” and writing that it “felt like straight prostitution.”
The investigation found that for about six weeks, Beck and the student exchanged more than 4,000 texts about sexual and illegal activity.
The teenage boy and his family did not want to cooperate with detectives due to concerns it would interfere with college athletic scholarships, officials said.
In the police report, texts show Beck did not like being compared to Burlaka.
“I mean yeah I guess but even though our situation is still not right at least we are closer in age,” Beck wrote to the student. “I don’t like being compared to Mrs B.”
In a handwritten note to the student found during a police search at her apartment, Beck wrote, “for this ‘relationship’ being extremely wrong, I feel like we have really made the most out of it,” and “there is truly no other student (I know, so wrong) that I’d want to do all this with.”
“This was not a relationship,” Jessica Nicely, a child abuse prevention specialist, said. “He was a child, and this was child abuse and child rape.”
Records reveal the school’s principal gave police Beck’s name after the investigation into Burlaka started. The principal told authorities he had received “multiple complaints from students and staff” about Beck.
“I need these educators and everybody in positions of authority to understand mandatory reporter training doesn’t mean you know something’s going on. It’s that you have a reasonable belief. You suspect something, and clearly they all did. Why didn’t any of them report this a long time ago?” Nicely said.
Burlaka voluntarily surrendered her Arizona teaching certificates. Beck did not, and last week the Peoria Unified School District Governing Board unanimously voted to fire her.
“We send our kids to your schools 10 months a year, five days a week, seven hours a day. So as a parent, I’m glad to see that these pedophiles like Haley Beck are being held accountable as much as possible,” a parent said during public comment at the governing board meeting March 26.
Nicely said in her 30-year career, she has not seen a case of two women perpetrating against the same male victim.
“These women are the 4% because 96% of the time child sexual abusers are men,” Nicely said. “I feel like when the perpetrator is a woman and the victim’s a boy, people make jokes. It’s not funny. It’s not an achievement. He’s a victim. That is not a relationship they were having. That is rape.”
Peoria police said the investigation is ongoing and believe there could be more victims. Beck has until April 8 to request a hearing with the district to dispute her termination, but she has not done so as of April 1.
Statements from the school district and police
A spokesperson for the Peoria Unified School District said it responded to the situation with appropriate actions.
The Peoria Police Department also said there is no indication there were any reporting failures on behalf of the school district.
