Teachers Union Accuses School Officials of Trying to Shift Blame in Molesting Case

The president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles charged Wednesday that the school district was trying to shift blame to the union when it cited tenure regulations as a reason why an accused child molester was allowed to continue teaching for more than a year after students and parents had made allegations against him.

“The district’s hit on tenure and UTLA is a red herring, a tempest in a teapot, a way to take the heat off themselves,” said Wayne Johnson, the union leader.

District officials have speculated that administrators may have taken so long in calling police in the case of Terry Bartholome, 48, because they had been “conditioned” to document all charges against a teacher in order to conform to tightly written tenure laws.

Bartholome has been charged with one count of rape and 26 counts of child molestation in response to allegations that he fondled students or exposed himself in class while he was a teacher at the 68th Street School. Bartholome, who has pleaded not guilty, has been ordered to stand trial in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Reasonable Suspicion

State law and district policy require that any reasonable suspicion of child molestation be reported immediately to police. Further, Johnson charged at a press conference Wednesday, “The district has the right to pull a teacher from the classroom any time they believe there is cause.”

Johnson defined “cause” as violent behavior, incompetence or misconduct.

District spokesman Bill Rivera acknowledged that the district does have the discretion to remove a teacher from a classroom and place him in a non-teaching position until dismissal procedures can be initiated. But, he quickly added, there was not enough substantiated evidence at the time of the accusations to remove Bartholome.

“If they (administrators) had had enough hard testimony they would have removed him immediately,” Rivera said.

Johnson also said at the press conference that he believes that the failure of district administrators to make a timely molestation report to the police in the Bartholome case signals a cover-up. The Los Angeles County Grand Jury is investigating several district officials to determine if such a cover-up did take place.

They Know the Law

“They (administrators) know what the laws are and once they failed to abide by the laws they probably tried to find some way to keep the situation quiet,” Johnson said.

But Rivera denied that there was any attempt by district employees to cover up the molestation accusations.

“What does the district have to gain from a cover-up?” Rivera asked. “The longer the information is withheld the more serious the problem becomes and the more negative it becomes for the district.”

Johnson said that because of the Bartholome case, the union is preparing for an onslaught of sexual abuse complaints against teachers during the upcoming school year. He indicated that many of them might be false.

“We’re projecting that next year we will have more child abuse reports than ever before,” Johnson said. “Children watch television, they get angry and they know they can get back at a teacher who gave them a bad grade by going into the principal’s office and saying that the teacher hit them or touched them.

“It is going to make our job more difficult.”