Teacher Queried on Motive for Complaint : Trial: She says formal sex-harassment charges against Mission Viejo bosses were made after schedule change.

During a seemingly damaging cross-examination, a South County teacher suing her school district for alleged sexual harassment acknowledged Monday that she made a formal complaint against her bosses only after they took steps to reassign her.

Sharon Daly Forslund, 51, testified in Orange County Superior Court that she had told fellow teachers, friends and a union representative that the principal and assistant principal at Mission Viejo High School sexually harassed her but that she had not complained to district authorities until her class schedule was changed.

Defense attorney James P. Collins Jr. contends that the reason Forslund didn’t file a complaint earlier is because the harassment never occurred. He alleges that Forslund made up the charges after the administrators tried to reduce the number of chemistry classes she taught because they believed that “she was not a strong enough teacher” to handle five classes.

But the El Toro chemistry teacher and her attorney, Carrie MacMillin, explained during a court break that the two administrators were aware that Forslund was upset about their behavior because word had spread among the high school faculty. Forslund alleges that the administrators were retaliating against her for what she had said to other people.

In testimony last week, Forslund said that Mission Viejo Principal Robert A. Metz and Assistant Principal Wilbur Chong took away several class assignments and later transferred her to another school because of her allegations.

She testified that Metz occasionally hugged her, rubbed his hand across her face, sat in sexually suggestive positions and made comments about her sex life. Chong, she alleged, snapped her bra strap, grabbed her buttock and had a conversation with her about oral sex.

Metz, 52, of Mission Viejo, and Chong, 54, of San Juan Capistrano, deny that they sexually harassed Forslund. Through their attorney, they declined further comment.

Forslund said that when the alleged incidents occurred, in 1985 and 1986, she was afraid to complain because her career was in their hands.

But defense attorney Collins tried to paint a different picture to the jury Monday. During nearly five hours of cross-examination, he insinuated that Forslund had problems with administrators at other schools she had worked at, had flirted with male administrators by “wiggling” in front of them and had not been emotionally or physically injured by any of the alleged harassment.

Forslund denied that she had run-ins with other administrators, said that she did not encourage the sexual harassment and maintained that her stress-related injuries were real. But Forslund repeatedly had to be admonished by the judge not to embellish her responses with unasked-for explanations.

Collins also produced statistics which he said showed that Forslund was “not that strong” a teacher as the administrators had believed. Compared to students in another teacher’s chemistry classes at the school, Collins said, Forslund’s students received poorer grades and had a higher attrition rate.

In another development Monday, Forslund said that another assistant principal at the school had sexually harassed her by hugging her and giving her an unwanted passionate kiss. She testified that she did not include the administrator in the lawsuit “because he apologized to me.”

The trial is expected to resume today with testimony from several of Forslund’s colleagues.