Another Case: A Difference of Opinion on Report

A Los Angeles schoolteacher said Monday that she was reprimanded by district officials and moved to another school after she reported allegations that her principal had molested two children in his office.

But top school officials familiar with the charges said they were “totally unfounded,” and police said the principal was cleared after an investigation.

The United Teachers of Los Angeles, which held a press conference Monday to air the teacher’s complaint, said the incident demonstrates that the district is more concerned with disciplining teachers who buck administrators than with making sure that child abuse is reported promptly.

The district, however, said the case shows how a school employee’s reputation could be ruined by unfair accusations.

Marie King, 38, a teacher at a South-Central Los Angeles elementary school, said she encouraged a child’s parents to call police in January, 1984, after two children said the principal had molested them in his office.

“I reported it, and a week later, I was out the door and told to never come back,” said King, who was transferred to the 74th Street School, also in South-Central Los Angeles.

Under state law and Los Angeles school district policy, teachers and other school employees are required to “immediately” report any allegations of child abuse to police. District policy states that a teacher must not be punished for making the report, even if it turns out to be false.

Wayne Johnson, teachers union president, said King’s charges show that the “operating policy” in the district is “to put a damper on these kinds of charges, to sweep them under the rug.”

King said Stuart Bernstein, a regional school administrator who was officially reprimanded for failing to act on reports of child molestation at the 68th Street School in South-Central Los Angeles, had punished and threatened her for acting quickly on a child abuse accusations.

“He (Bernstein) said, ‘You are nothing but a troublemaker. If you want to keep your job, keep your mouth shut. And never show your face at this school again,” King said.

Bernstein, responding Monday afternoon, said: “She’s lying. That is simply not true. In fact, those are kind of libelous statements.”

Bernstein said that soon after King began work in October, 1983, the district received complaints from parents that she could not handle her class. The principal had called her in for numerous conferences to say that her work was poor and must improve, he added.

“She is a disturbed young lady, a pathetic individual,” Bernstein continued. “For Wayne Johnson to use this kind of case for his own agenda with the union is at best very unprofessional. I didn’t think he would stoop to this.”

King said, and Bernstein confirmed, that she was given an “unsatisfactory” job evaluation by her principal Jan. 25, 1984, a week after she urged the children to report the allegations of child molesting.

Events Called Coincidental

King and union officials said the poor job rating was a way to get back at the teacher.

Bernstein and other school officials say the two events were coincidental.

Unlike the allegations in the case of Terry Bartholome, the 68th Street School teacher accused of molesting children in his care, those at King’s school were quickly investigated by police.

“There was an investigation, and he (the principal) was exonerated,” said Lt. Vance Proctor, officer in charge of the sexually exploited child unit of the Los Angeles Police Department.

“One of the children recanted the allegation. In a second allegation, our investigators concluded that it could not have happened as she said. We are satisfied that he was innocent of the charges,” Proctor said.

(Because no charges were filed, The Times is not publishing the principal’s name or the name of his school).

Los Angeles school officials still maintain that the Bartholome case is an aberration and not part of a general failure to act quickly in case of suspected child abuse.

However, under a district policy on “criminal investigations” that was obtained by The Times, top district officials are told that they must give “prior approval” before any school employee can be the target of an investigation.

“Each request from any staff member below the associate superintendent level for any investigation concerning (district) personnel shall be in writing and shall bear the signature of the appropriate associate superintendent” before it is forwarded to the school police, according to the Sept. 7, 1982, policy memo.

“No investigation of personnel shall be initiated without prior approval” of high-ranking district administrators, the policy statement adds.

In the 68th Street School case of a suspected molester who operated more than a year before police were called, the principal and school officials tried to work through channels instead of calling the police.

Child Abuse ‘an Exception’

“These are two separate issues,” said Sidney Thompson, associate superintendent for school operations. Thompson said he has repeatedly told lower-ranking school officials that child abuse allegations are “an exception” to the policy on criminal investigations.

“A principal can not initiate an investigation (of a teacher or other employee) except by going through the proper channels. That is to prevent an investigation that no one knows about,” Thompson said.

“But that in no way stops a child abuse investigation. You must report that immediately to begin a police investigation,” he said.

Thompson added that he “can see where you might see some confusion between the policies, but I don’t see it as an overlap. In my conversations with regional people, this question has never come up.”