SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : School Board Urged to Reject Claim

Capistrano Unified School District administrators have recommended that the district reject a $5-million claim by a Capistrano Valley High School biology teacher who says he was falsely accused by administrators of teaching religion in class.

The district’s Board of Trustees is scheduled to vote Monday on the claim of John Peloza, a 36-year-old “born-again” Christian who received a reprimand last winter after the parents of two Jewish students said he was preaching to their children. He was also accused of discrediting the theory of evolution in order to teach creationism, which district officials say violates state and federal law prohibiting the teaching of religion in public schools.

A reprimand is one step short of suspension.

The school district, like most government agencies, routinely rejects claims. State law, however, requires such claims be filed before a person can sue an agency.

“The rejection of the claim is a pro forma, technical step along the way to what we expect will be a full hearing before a judge where all the evidence can be presented and weighed,” Supt. James A. Fleming said. “To accept the claim would have required us to write out a check for $5 million.”

Peloza said if the board rejects the claim, he will file a lawsuit against the district this month.

“There is no backing down . . . even though my career is in jeopardy,” Peloza said.

Peloza says that in his classes he teaches the theory of evolution, but points out that not everybody agrees with it and that one alternative thought is that human life was created by a higher being. He says he just pointing out that neither theory is observable fact.

The reprimand instructed Peloza to stop teaching his students that mankind was put on Earth by an intelligent creator and instead to follow district guidelines that require evolution be taught as the scientific explanation of man’s origin.

“They want me to push the politically correct teaching of evolution as fact even though there are too many holes,” Peloza said. “It would be wrong of me to do so.”

Peloza, in the 16-page claim filed in May, alleges that the district by its reprimand and the actions of its employees has committed a “violation of his constitutional right of academic freedom, conspiracy to violate his civil rights, libel, slander, breach of contract, invasion of privacy and negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

Peloza, in the complaint, is also seeking damages against the student newspaper, Paw Prints, for printing an editorial by a senior at the school criticizing Peloza’s teaching methods. Also listed in the complaint are several Capistrano Valley High School teachers, a teacher at another high school who was quoted in a local newspaper criticizing Peloza and State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig.

In one of the complaints that led to the reprimand, the parents of a Jewish student said Peloza told their daughter that people who don’t believe in Jesus Christ are damned to hell. In the other complaint, the parents said Peloza had given a Bible to a student after class.