La Jolla Action Questioned : Other Schools Say They Would Have Kept Rogers

Without evidence of an imminent safety risk to students, San Diego area educators say, they would not have asked the wife of Vincennes skipper Will Rogers III to resign her fourth-grade classroom duties simply because she was the target of a possible terrorist attack last week.

Instead, educators interviewed by The Times said they would have made sure that the government provide extra security for Sharon Rogers’ class or would have transferred the teacher to another assignment, where she could keep working but have minimal contact with students until the threat of terrorist action had subsided.

Rogers resigned Thursday as a teacher at the exclusive La Jolla Country Day School, where she had been employed 12 years and had earned a reputation as an excellent teacher.

2 Days After Phone Threat

The move came six days after Rogers escaped injury when a crude pipe bomb exploded under the van she was driving to the school--an incident experts believe could have been a terrorist retaliation for the accidental downing of an Iranian air bus by the guided missile cruiser Vincennes last summer. It followed by two days a bomb threat phoned to the campus, which this week posted security guards to turn away strangers and search classrooms before school began.

In announcing the “mutual decision” for Rogers to step down, officials at the private school said they were concerned about the “safety of the children, the confidence of the parents and the integrity of the educational environment . . . “

Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego), a friend of the Rogerses, said Friday that he was deeply disappointed in the school’s decision to drop Rogers from the faculty. He said he believes that Rogers, already victimized by the van explosion, was made a victim a second time by losing her job.

“As the father of three kids, I can certainly identify with the concerns of the parents,” he said. “But this is a case where the victim is a victim again.

“And this is what international terrorism is all about, to put such fears into how we go about our daily business that we capitulate.”

Uncertainty and Pressure

An aide to Lowery has said that La Jolla Country Day administrators told him that, although they had no “direct information” that the school was being targeted for terrorism, Rogers’ presence on the campus created “uncertainty” and “pressure” on the academic environment.

Spokesmen for the San Diego Police Department and the Naval Investigative Service, which is providing security for the Rogers family in the wake of the bombing, said they were not involved with the decision and did not advise school officials about what, if any, safety risk was posed by Rogers returning to the classroom.

A number of San Diego-area educators said Friday that their guidelines and “moral” feelings were such that unsubstantiated fears about a terrorist attack on campus would not be strong enough to keep Rogers out of their classrooms.

“In this day and age, we have to deal with a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity, and one of the things we have to do is provide some sense of direction for our young people on how to deal with that,” said Tom Payzant, superintendent for 117,000 students in the San Diego Unified School District.

“I’m not sure we should give in to the ambiguity and uncertainty by running scared,” Payzant said. “I would have thought long and hard about putting pressure on somebody to leave, if that in fact happened.”

Payzant said that, before taking any action in Rogers’ case, he would have consulted with police agencies to determine the safety risks to her classroom and explored whether the government would be willing to provide added protection for the teacher and her students.

“Most likely, we would take it head-on and deal with the security issues and say that things have got to get back to normal as quickly as possible,” Payzant said. “That’s the best message to send to everybody.”

Relieving Rogers of her duties, he said, could be interpreted as a victory for the terrorists, if indeed they were responsible for the bombing.

“I think there is something to that argument that you can’t run scared,” Payzant said. “You’ve got to take the necessary precautions, but we still have to remain in control and put forth a positive image.

“You can’t develop the kind of atmosphere where everybody feels victimized and is fearful,” he said. “Once people adopt that attitude, it really makes it very difficult for a school to be a place where creativity and learning can occur.”

Lowery said he had met with the secretary of the Navy in Washington this week and had been assured that the Navy and San Diego police were willing to provide adequate security for Rogers should she be allowed to continue her fourth-grade teaching assignment.

“To me, rather than firing Sharon Rogers, that strikes me as a better approach,” Lowery said.

Mixed Feelings

Rene Townsend, superintendent of the 16,000-student Vista Unified School District, said she had “mixed feelings” about what happened to Rogers, but would have tried to transfer the teacher to a different job in the district while the investigation of the bombing ran its course.

“The way we operate in our district is to rally around somebody who is having a difficult time and help them through that,” Townsend said. “Obviously, this is a difficult time for the Capt. and Mrs. Rogers.”

Asked if she would consider hiring Rogers for an elementary-school position in the wake of the bombing, Townsend said, “We would consider her application like everybody else’s.”

Several superintendents pointed out Friday that, unlike with private school administrators, state law forbids them to remove a teacher from the classroom for reasons other than insubordination or incompetence.

Aside from the law, however, some superintendents said they would have moral qualms about letting Rogers go.

“Morally, I don’t think I could dismiss a teacher because something occurred due to her family situation,” said Steven F. Speach, superintendent for the 15,000-student Oceanside Unified School District. “Basically, we have to base our judgment on her performance as a teacher. As long as her performance were adequate, she would continue to be employed.”

‘Some Moral Problems’

Added Terry Ryan, superintendent of the 1,011-student Bonsall Union Elementary School District: “I would have had some moral problems with that, dismissing a teacher just for the incident in which she was involved. Morally, you don’t dismiss a teacher who is a quality teacher without just cause.

“But, if there is an imminent danger to children, that has to come first, even in that situation,” Ryan said.

Tom Robinson, assistant superintendent for the Poway Unified School District, also said he would not let Rogers go if he were headmaster of a private school.

“My answer would be no,” he said. “If that were to happen, and I were a headmaster for a small, private school, I would be sitting down with her and trying to find some remedy that would be acceptable to both parties.”

A spokeswoman for The Bishop’s School, another exclusive private school in La Jolla, declined comment on what its administration would do if faced with Rogers’ case. The headmaster for the private Francis W. Parker School did not return phone calls Friday.

Jim Stewart, La Jolla Country Day School development director, declined comment on the school’s handling of the case except to refer to a statement released Thursday that said Rogers would not be returning to campus.