Girl Testifies in Teacher Rape Case : Man Accused in Incidents District Was Slow to Report

A 68th Street Elementary School student took the stand on Friday in the preliminary hearing of her former third-grade teacher, who is charged with one count of rape and 27 counts of molestation and lewd conduct in incidents that took Los Angeles school district officials more than a year to report to police.

The girl is one of more than 10 students scheduled to testify against Terry Bartholome, a 48-year-old Newbury Park resident, who was removed from his teaching position last January and dismissed from the school district the following month. The preliminary hearing, to determine if he should stand trial, is expected to conclude on Monday.

All of the charges against Bartholome stem from the 1 1/2 years he taught third grade in the South-Central Los Angeles school, according to Bill Rivera, Los Angeles school district spokesman.

Although the first molestation allegation against Bartholome was reported by the school principal to regional school administrators in the fall of 1983, it was not until a year later that the school district’s police department and the Los Angeles Police Department were informed of the reported incidents, Rivera said.

He said the principal failed to notify police apparently because she thought that regional authorities would do so, but they did not.

“This is a very, very bad situation,” Rivera said. “Nobody is trying to downplay it. We had the facts. Why we didn’t move faster, I don’t know.” Rivera added that the alleged molestation incidents at 68th Street School were not the first that Bartholome had been linked with. Earlier, while a teacher at 107th Street School in Watts, Bartholome was accused of sexually molesting some of his female students.

“About halfway through the (107th Street School) investigation, the witnesses said they could not go through with it, so the investigation stopped,” Rivera said. “The allegations and the investigation created a lot of tension at the school. In situations like this, district policies state that the teacher should be removed from the school.”

Bartholome was transferred to 68th Street School, and Principal Alice McDonald was informed of the 107th Street accusations.

“She was told to keep an eye on him,” Rivera said. “She was told to immediately report any incidents to the region office.”

Shortly after his arrival on the 68th Street campus in the fall of 1983, McDonald made her first report of alleged molestation by Bartholome to administrators in the Region C headquarters, Rivera said.

Under state law, teachers and principals are required to report any suspicions they have of physical or sexual abuse of children. Violations can be prosecuted as misdemeanors.

According to school district policy, if a principal or teacher has any reason to suspect that a staff member, parent or member of the community has abused or sexually molested a student, he or she must report it to law enforcement authorities.

“Obviously in this particular case, the policy was not followed,” Rivera said. “Our assumption is that the principal believed that the region administrators would bring in the authorities. They did not.”

Incidents Finally Reported

McDonald again reported accusations against Bartholome to region officials in the spring of 1984. She reported two more incidents last fall. Last November, region administrators informed Sidney A. Thompson, the associate superintendent who oversees the regional offices, of the accusations.

Thompson reported the alleged incidents to the district’s police department. The school district’s force and the Los Angeles Police Department began an investigation.

“By then it was Christmas vacation,” Rivera said. “When he (Bartholome) returned to school, he was transferred to a non-classroom assignment.”

According to courtroom testimony, most of the incidents occurred during recesses or lunch breaks. Witnesses said that Bartholome would invite girls to return to the classroom after he had excused the class to play in the schoolyard. Once alone with the female students, he would try to take advantage of them, the girls said.

Union President Surprised

Wayne Johnson, president of United Teachers of Los Angeles, the district’s largest teachers’ union, said he was surprised that it took district administrators so long to take action on alleged incidents.

“Here we have a person who, it appears, had a significant number of questions about his conduct being asked, and not much was done about it,” Johnson said. “At the very least, this is a case of flagrant irresponsibility.”

Johnson added that he could recall only two cases this school year involving teachers in sexually related incidents. Both cases, he said, involved accusations of verbal sexual harassment. In both incidents the teachers were cleared.

“Most of the cases (that come to the attention of district officials) involve parents or community people,” Rivera said.

Bartholome was arrested in May and remains in custody. At the request of defense attorney Sherwin C. Edelberg, Municipal Judge Xenophon F. Lang sealed documents that might have shown why the school district was late in taking action against Bartholome.

Contributing to this article was Times staff writer Paul Feldman