Official addresses abuse case

The president of Santa Monica’s school board said Thursday that a “breakdown in communication” prevented the board from fully examining a 2006 complaint against a teacher who was charged this week with molesting five of his female students.

Oscar de la Torre, president of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District board, said he and other board members learned about the 2006 complaint only this week after Lincoln Middle School teacher Thomas Arthur Beltran, 60, was arrested. De la Torre said then-Principal Kathy Scott, who reported the allegations to police, is no longer with the district.

“There was a transition in leadership, and I think the communication [channels] suffered a breakdown,” De la Torre said. “The school board was never alerted to the allegations in 2006.”

As a result, De la Torre said he still wasn’t clear on whether Beltran was temporarily moved out of the classroom after the complaint was made and on what basis the principal decided to let him continue teaching. No mention of the complaint was found in Beltran’s personnel file, De la Torre said.

District officials said prosecutors found insufficient evidence at the time to pursue a criminal case against Beltran after a police investigation. The student was removed from his class and Beltran, who said at the time that his actions were “misinterpreted,” was warned not to touch female students.

De la Torre said that at the board’s meeting May 15 the district superintendent would present a report on new protocols and policies regarding potential child abuse cases. He said the policies might include interviewing a sample of students, informing parents when such an incident is reported and instituting a districtwide open-door policy when students are alone with teachers.

He said that informing the board about such allegations against a teacher and including that information in the personnel file would ensure that it did not fall through the cracks.

“The important thing here is to protect students first and foremost, and to think of a reasonable plan that will do that without setting up a scenario where it’s very easy for someone to retaliate against a teacher they do not like with malicious intent,” De la Torre said. “That’s the hard part.”

On Thursday, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said police were questioning at least five additional people who alleged they were sexually molested by Beltran, perhaps as far back as 1998.

Beltran, who is married and worked at Lincoln for two decades, was arrested Saturday after a 12-year-old student reported the alleged abuse to her parents, who notified police. He pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 14 felony counts of sexual molestation, including eight counts of a lewd act on a child, three counts of continuous sexual abuse and three counts of sexual penetration with a foreign object on a child under 14. The charges include the alleged 2006 incident reported to school officials. All the alleged incidents occurred in his classroom, police say.

According to court documents, the alleged abuse of the students took place between Dec. 1, 2004, and April 30 of this year. Police said that at least one incident was recorded on a videotape that was discovered during the investigation. Police will be contacting former students of Beltran as far back as possible, but the statute of limitations allows charges to be filed only in incidents since May 1998, said Santa Monica Police Lt. Darrell Lowe.

Beltran remains in jail in lieu of $3.3-million bail.

The state penal code requires educators to report child abuse allegations to authorities. The district has a four-sentence reporting policy that requires teachers to report alleged incidents to nurses and school principals, who then “assume responsibility.”

In the alleged 2006 incident, Assistant Principal Francis Costanzo informed Scott of the alleged abuse. District officials said Thursday that they were still reviewing the circumstances of the case.

Assistant Supt. Mike Matthews said he reached Scott by phone Wednesday night and had “some initial discussions” regarding the 2006 inquiry. He wouldn’t elaborate. “We’re going to continue those discussions and try to get a more complete picture as they occur,” he said. “It was a helpful initial discussion, but we’re not done yet.”

Scott is now a principal in the Anaheim Union High School District. She has not returned calls made to her office this week. Scott left her post as Lincoln principal in June 2006. Then-Supt. John Deasy also left the district in 2006; current Supt. Dianne Talarico was hired in July of that year.

Costanzo is still an assistant principal at the school and could not be reached for comment. At a Monday night meeting, he told about 200 parents the importance of talking to their children about “good touch” and “bad touch.”

“If something happens, use it as a teachable moment,” Costanzo said, choking back tears. “This is a teachable moment.”

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tami.abdollah@latimes.com