A Hands-Off Warning--Dilemma for Some Teachers

These days, most teachers know it can be risky to pat their students on the shoulder, to counsel them alone in a classroom, or to keep suspicions about other teachers’ behavior to themselves.

Last week, as criminal child molestation charges emerged against three Orange County teachers, fellow educators recalled those risks, and at the same time bemoaned the uncomfortable dilemmas they raise.

Never pat students’ shoulders or counsel them in private, they’ve been told. Keep the doors open and always report your suspicions of others.

“A lot of educators are hands-on type teachers. Every once in a while, they have the occasion to put an arm around a distraught student. Because of all the publicity regarding child molestation, teachers can’t afford to get this close to students,” said Mark Rona, a special education teacher at El Modena High School and president of the Orange Unified Educators’ Assn. “It’s getting to the point where teachers are real paranoid about what’s going on.”

3 Teachers Face Charges

Now removed from teaching and facing charges are Robert John Webber, 44, an El Toro High School math teacher who has been charged with three felony counts of sexual contact with a 16-year-old girl; Keith Sheldon Milne, 38, a reading teacher at Olivewood Elementary School in El Toro, charged with 10 misdemeanor counts of annoying and molesting seven girls, and Gary Lawrence Lee, 35, a band leader at Kraemer Junior High School in Placentia, charged with seven felony counts of sexual contact with a 14-year-old female student.

All have denied the charges.

“I don’t know if they’re guilty or innocent,” said Michael Gallups, president of the Saddleback Valley Educators’ Assn. “What is tragic is if they are innocent, their careers indeed are ruined at this point.” He added that students he overheard gossiping at El Toro High assume Webber is guilty.

Unlike other suspects, teachers are subject to triple jeopardy, Rona said. They not only may be tried in criminal court, but even if exonerated are still subject to dismissal by the local school board and to credential review by the state board of education.

Fear of charges means “you can’t relax and be yourself anymore,” Rona said. “You don’t know how it’s going to be interpreted by someone who may see you.”

“All it takes,” he said, “is one student upset with her teacher over a grade to say something to anybody. Once an administrator gets wind of it, he is legally obligated to take action by calling the police.

“The biggest thing you have to be careful of is putting your hands on students and, for males, being in an enclosed area alone with a female student.”

Ironically, touching--especially with younger students--has been shown to reinforce learning and positive behavior, according to Phyllis Lerner, a Huntington Beach teacher trainer who gives workshops for the Los Angeles County Educational Equity Center. Positive touching by teachers is neither sexual nor social, Lerner said.

“The kind of touch we support is that which reinforces learning: putting a hand on the shoulder when they’re working at the desk and letting them know you care about what they’re doing. We suggest touching on the shoulders or upper back.”

But teachers are so nervous about allegations of child molestation, she said, “They’d be happy if we gave them a palm print (that says)--’Here, touch here.’ ” In addition, different cultures give different meaning to touching certain places, which increases the chances for misunderstanding, she said.

“We’re feeling a real backlash,” Lerner said. Nearly half the teachers she trains come from districts with “no-touch” policies. “They don’t have to distinguish between right and wrong. No touch, no problem.”

On the other hand, other Orange County teachers said they will continue to hug both girls and boys who need affection and consolation. “Sometimes,” one counselor said, “we’re the only ones here.”

But Olivewood instructor Milne reportedly had been warned by the principal that his manner of touching students might be misconstrued. Last week, Milne was charged with placing his hand on the shoulders of seven fourth- and fifth-grade girls during class and moving his hand under their blouses to their breasts.

Milne’s attorney, Paul Wallin, said the case turns not on whether someone is lying but on whether Milne was practicing a teaching technique or was abnormally attracted to the children.

“The worst evidence is when he was teaching the kids and in the context of saying ‘good job,’ he put a hand on the shoulder, gave a squeeze; on one occasion, his fingers came and touched her breast.” It is not difficult for an adult’s hand to accidentally span the distance between a shoulder and a breast on an 11-year-old girl, he said.

“Each girl told the cops a little worse story than what they told the principal,” Wallin said. “One girl says, ‘He grabbed my neck and patted my lower thigh and upper knee.’ What were they talking about? Her math project--that she did a good job. That’s child molest?”

Some teachers also are concerned that awareness programs, such as the Child Abuse Prevention Program, which had been presented at Olivewood before the allegations, or that awareness of other child-molestation allegations, also previously made at Olivewood, may predispose children to misconstrue an innocent touch.

Nathan Nishimoto, supervisor of the county Child Abuse Registry, which records reports of child abuse, said he has no knowledge of what role past events play in motivating children to report what they believe to be molestation incidents.

Only 2% of 12,027 reports of child abuse in Orange County last year turned out to be false, after investigation by police or child protective services, he said. Nearly 45%, however, turn out to unsubstantiated--where the evidence was not conclusive enough to prove that the child’s injuries were abusive.

According to state reporting laws, revised in 1981, teachers with any “reasonable suspicion” or knowledge of child abuse or neglect must file a report with a child protective agency, such as the Child Abuse Registry or police. Failing to report is a misdemeanor, punishable by a year in jail or a $1,000 fine.

“Reasonable suspicion” makes for “a pretty subjective criteria,” Nishimoto said.

Teachers in the Saddleback Valley, where two teachers have been charged, are concerned about being caught in the middle, Gallups said.

At El Toro, the female student who accused Webber previously had told another teacher that she and Webber were having an affair. The teacher did not report the accusation to school administrators or to authorities at the time but later came forward after criminal charges were filed.

“He felt by going down to the administration, it would clear up, but because he did, it caused further investigation of him,” Gallups said, but added that no charges were filed against the teacher.

Last week, members of the Saddleback Valley Educators Assn. asked Gallups to reorder wallet-sized brochures on teachers’ rights and responsibilities in child-abuse reporting. “It’s one of those items that’s filed away until there’s a big problem,” he said. “Everyone knows you should be prepared for an earthquake, (but) it’s information that’s not timely when you receive it.”

“Before the child abuse reporting laws, teachers could say, ‘I don’t have to worry about criminal laws because I’m not a child molester.’ Today, a teacher could be involved in a criminal prosecution related to child abuse, not because he or she did anything, but because he or she failed to do something,” said Paul Crost, an attorney on contract with the California Teachers Assn., who represents accused teachers and gives workshops on how to avoid allegations.

“The law makes it a duty to be a fink of everybody else. If your fellow teacher has done something improper, you have to report him. If it turns out later he’s exonerated, it doesn’t leave much of a relationship with the faculty member. But it’s supposed to be anonymous.”

Several years ago, teachers were so nervous about being charged with failure to report that they filed reports on themselves for breaking up playground fights, said John Turner, manager of the state attorney general’s Child Abuse Program.

Since then, workshops to help teachers define abuse have helped reduce the number of unfounded cases, he said.

But teachers said they also face similar dilemmas in reporting when children want to open their hearts about a personal problem. They say they know they cannot keep the child’s secret without being subject to prosecution.

Crost advises teachers not to make promises they cannot keep, even though students may not talk at that point. In that case, teachers have complained that communication breaks down.

In the Saddleback Valley Unified School District, each principal receives copies of federal and state handbooks on preventing child abuse and neglect. Teachers also receive an additional handbook on child abuse and new employees are required to sign forms indicating that they have read various laws and requirements about child-abuse reporting. Workshops are held periodically.

Nevertheless, many teachers don’t concern themselves greatly about it. “It’s the it’s-not-going-to-happen-to-me syndrome,” said Diane Moline, a fourth-grade teacher at Taft Elementary School in Orange.

“I don’t worry about it too much. I put my hands on their shoulder, give them a hug sometimes. Somebody would have to use a lot of imagination to make something out of what I do.

“I personally don’t think there’s anything worse than a teacher who can’t be warm and show affection. It’s asking a lot to say ‘hands off.’ ”

Crost added: “If you become an iron-suited automaton with no personal contact with people you care for and students you work with, a lot of joy and the rewards of the occupation are lost. Nevertheless, from the legal perspective, one says you have to take it into account.”

“The teacher who is really in a double bind is a teacher who brushes aside the girl with a crush on him,” Crost said.

In many cases, teachers do succumb to temptation, he said. But sometimes, for the girl, “The line between love and hate is easily crossed over. I’ve seen cases where the kid out of hurt feelings gets twisted up in that teen-age emotion business that goes, ‘he hurt me, so I’m going to hurt him.’ ”

Male teachers said they quickly discourage romantic notions from their female students.

“You send off certain signals that the kind of attention you’re giving is a fatherly attention, and not something that could be misinterpreted. I’ve never had anything misinterpreted,” said a counselor who asked not to be identified.

“I shut those things off real quick by physically removing myself,” Gallups said.

One teacher, in an effort to avoid even brief moments alone with students, was said to lock himself in his office during the lunch hour.

Still, Gallups said he does not avoid being alone with female students. “I can’t put a sign on the door saying no girls can come in unless another student is with them. There has to be that level of trust.”

Some teachers say that to stop being physically supportive, or acting as a confidante would also be a form of negligence.

“You can become overly paranoid,” said an Orange County teacher at one of the affected schools. “It’s unbelievable. A deal like this, it’s a cloud that hangs over like a bad rap.”