Ex-Teacher Gets Probation, Treatment After Shoot-Out

The Saddleback Unified School District agreed in court Tuesday to pay for psychiatric treatment for a former math teacher accused of having a shoot-out with deputies after he was fired from his job.

Three days into jury selection for his trial on attempted-murder charges, Ronald Charles Sklar, 44, pleaded guilty Tuesday to a lesser charge of assault with a deadly weapon as part of a plea agreement. Superior Court Judge Leonard H. McBride placed Sklar on three years’ probation. But, as part of the agreement, he also ordered him transferred from the Orange County Jail to UCI Medical Center, where Sklar will receive inpatient psychiatric treatment, then weekly outpatient care. McBride said he would leave it to the UCI Medical Center doctors to determine when outpatient care could begin.

But Tuesday night, school board member Louise Adler, saying she was unhappy with the agreement, asked district officials to call a special board meeting to discuss it.

The judge also ordered Sklar to have no contact with administrators or board members of the school district. He also ordered him not to possess any weapons during his probation.

Sklar was arrested on Jan. 22 after he exchanged shots with Orange County sheriff’s deputies at his Mission Viejo home. The deputies were trying to serve Sklar with an arrest warrant alleging that he had carried a concealed weapon into the Saddleback school district’s Mission Viejo offices earlier that day.

Sklar, who had taught math in the district for 14 years, primarily at El Toro High School, reportedly had demanded to see a school board member about his firing. He also reportedly showed district employees that he had a gun.

Sklar was held on $250,000 bail after his arrest and has been in custody since then.

Also as part of the plea agreement, Sklar pleaded guilty to felony assault, but with the agreement that it would be reduced to a misdemeanor if he does not violate any terms of his sentence, McBride said. Sklar’s attorney, Byron McMillan, said later that the misdemeanor status would permit Sklar to return to teaching.

No One Was Injured

McMillan said Sklar was innocent because the police officers who came to his door that night had not identified themselves. The police said Sklar shot first; he claims the police did.

No one was injured in the shooting.

Adler, one of five school board members, said Tuesday that the plea agreement the board saw when it agreed to pay Sklar’s psychiatric costs was less favorable to Sklar than the one agreed to in court.

“We would never make an agreement to pay if Mr. Sklar were allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor,” Adler said.

Also, she said, the agreement about people within the school system Sklar may not contact was supposed to have been much broader, and the probation was supposed to have been for five years instead of three.

Agreement ‘Appropriate’

In excusing the jurors, McBride said he thought the agreement was “appropriate.”

Peter Hartman, superintendent of the Saddleback district, refused to discuss Sklar’s case.

McMillan said Sklar has been at the Orange County Jail for almost a year without an incident on his record.

“How many people in that jail can you say that about,” McMillan said.