Campus Safety in Question at San Rafael : Education: Beating of custodian and attempted rape have some at elementary school at Camp Pendleton fearful. Others say incidents are isolated.

San Rafael Elementary School seems like it’s about the safest place on earth, nesting near the main gate at Camp Pendleton, where battle-ready MPs pack loaded .45s and thousands of other Marines watchfully go about their business.

Yet some disturbing things have happened on campus. One night last year, there was an attempted rape of a 15-year-old girl, and, sometime later, a school custodian was beaten unconscious by three assailants.

There are also reports of illegal aliens and other strangers invading the campus, vehicle theft and burglaries in the school parking lot, night carousing by people who leave empty beer cans and used condoms.

Whether the campus is a dangerous place--or whether such recent claims are unfair and wildly exaggerated--has alarmed parents and divided some teachers at a school that, the safety issue aside, is recognized for its academic performance and close-knit staff.

Angel Valentin, the assaulted custodian, says this:

“I was born in Manhattan, and I feel no fear there. I have traveled half the world in the Marine Corps and nothing happened. Here, I am doing my own job, minding my own business, and I get attacked.”

That was last Oct. 15, when he was struck on the back and head and knocked out while collecting trash. He was treated at a nearby hospital and went on disability for 2 1/2 months because of injuries.

Valentin, whose two children attend the school, says he still regularly visits a psychiatrist because of recurring dreams about “being confronted in the night . . . about blood and me getting hurt.”

He has filed a lawsuit against the Oceanside Unified School District, which operates San Rafael on Camp Pendleton property for children of both military and civilian families. The suit seeks an undetermined amount of money for physical and emotional damage.

Some faculty members, clearly not all, share Valentin’s chilling belief that the campus is unsafe for the 25 teachers, other staff members, and more than 700 kindergarten through sixth-grade students.

“There’s a general feeling that, when you’re on that campus, anything can happen,” said one teacher who spoke on condition of remaining unnamed. “I’ve seen police chases on campus, I’ve seen gang members waiting off campus to beat students. I’ve found beer bottles and condoms. I’ve had adults and older teen-agers sneaking over fences onto the playground who refused to leave and said, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ ”

However, such a frightening specter is angrily contradicted by other faculty members and the principal, who say the school’s reputation is jeopardized by claims that are unfounded or based on mostly minor problems that happened over many years.

“In no time in the eight years I’ve been here has a student ever been injured by an outside force,” Principal Linda Goldstein said.” I feel safe and secure here.”

Allied with the principal is PTA president Carol Neff, who acknowledges that there’s been a smattering of problems in the school’s history and that there have been frequent complaints about inadequate campus lighting.

But she said claims that the school is unsafe are grossly overstated.

“These are things that have happened over the last eight years, all were minor except Angel getting beaten up,” Neff said. “That was serious, and it made all of us very angry.”

Neither Goldstein nor Neff was aware of the attempted rape of a teen-age girl after regular school hours last April 24, a matter handled by the Oceanside Police Department, according to department spokesman Bob George.

Visually, the campus is a serene place that occupies a breezy spot with a view of the ocean, nearby off-base housing and the Marine base’s main gate and surrounding grasslands.

Much of the largely unfenced campus, built in 1969 and of staid architecture, is surrounded by open areas that provide scenery and freshness. Children play loudly and gaily, and the school looks quite spotless.

The very openness, however, may be an invitation to unwelcome guests. Some teachers and authorities say anybody--presumably military dependents--who don’t want to pass through the main gate and show identification simply cut across the campus at any time to get on base.

Just west of campus is Interstate 5 and the railroad tracks, both used by jumping-off illegal aliens. Last year, thousands of illegal immigrants were arrested on Camp Pendleton, where they maneuver north in hopes of bypassing the Border Patrol checkpoint near San Onofre.

Fleeing migrants and pursuing Border Patrol officers are a common sight on base and to a certain degree on campus, although teachers disagree about the magnitude and significance of that fact.

At any rate, the safety issue loomed large after Valentin was beaten last October. Some faculty members say they were also rattled because, about the same time, a woman was raped near base housing several hundred yards from campus. Military authorities are still investigating the rape, according to a Camp Pendleton spokesman.

Concern over Valentin sparked a petition by school faculty members, PTA members and parents active in school affairs. In December, the petition went to the school board, seeking more lighting and a fence around the school’s perimeter.

The petition read in part: “We urge you to take immediate action to correct these hazardous conditions before more innocent victims, both children and adult, are forced to crawl, bleeding, several hundred yards to the front gate of Camp Pendleton for help.”

A cover letter by school librarian Mary Lepley said that, although San Rafael’s staff had been proud of the school’s good community relations and safety record, “Unfortunately times are changing, and it is now necessary to provide our students, staff and visitors with additional protection.”

The school board approved installation of more lighting, and Valentin now has access to a special telephone to give him more security when he works alone at night.

But the safety issue didn’t die.

Recently, an anonymous letter to local news organizations presented a litany of safety problems that purportedly occur “on a regular basis.” It said, in one part, “Will a student have to be murdered at recess before the community takes action?”

The letter hit a nerve, evoking both condemnation and support.

“I would say it was stretched so far, I was angry when I read it, I was defensive of the school,” said a school staff member who asked to be unnamed for fear of being divisive.

PTA president Neff, who signed the petition, is upset about the letter and is mounting a counter-offensive of rebuttal letters to the editor. She believes the school is safe, despite occasional problems and visits by the Border Patrol. And she doesn’t want the community’s confidence shaken.

“My biggest gripe is (the letter) was over-dramatized. . . . People are going to think this is the pit of the world, you don’t want to send your children here.”

Neff acknowledged that the letter has affected the school staff. “I would say it’s definitely divided,” she said.

One teacher, Pat Traynor, said, “I think of this school as being very safe and very orderly. We have a good school here.”

Some feel otherwise.

Another staff member who, fearing retribution, agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity, said safety deficiencies should have been resolved long ago, and that publicity may be necessary to provoke action.

“I’m not the only one who goes in (to work overtime) on the weekends and feels frightened,” the staff member said. “If you’re worried about being assaulted on campus, you’re probably not thinking about math.”

Another staff member, recounting an incident about two years ago, said, “when you’re asked to escort students five at a time to the school buses because there are gang members waiting to beat them up, I feel threatened and intimidated by that.”

To which, Goldstein flatly replied, “We do not have a gang problem at this school.” Once, she said, some junior high school boys stood outside San Rafael’s fence and “were teasing one of our sixth-graders,” but they were dispersed.

There is obviously a major question of perception at San Rafael. Just how safe or dangerous is the school? The answer is largely a matter of opinion.

And so many law enforcement agencies have jurisdiction on base that it’s hard to compile comprehensive crime statistics and learn whether there’s an actual trend.

For example, the Border Patrol is almost always at Camp Pendleton, but figures aren’t broken down to indicate how many aliens are arrested on or near the school. The school is located near the last civilian exit from I-5 before the checkpoint.

“They have apprehended many aliens in that area, it could be smugglers dropping off aliens there to circumvent the checkpoint,” said Border Patrol spokesman Steve Kean.

“Another likely possibility is they’re getting off there because that’s where the freight train stops.”

One San Rafael faculty member said a group of illegal immigrants was discovered to have built a tree house at school “and were living in the tree and were rummaging through the dumpster looking for useful things.”

Goldstein says that only a blanket was found by the dumpster, and some tree branches were bent, but there was no real evidence of a migrant encampment.

As for claims of vehicle theft and burglary at the school parking lot, Goldstein said her own car was vandalized twice, Valentin’s car was taken, and the librarian’s car was stolen in “broad daylight.”

But the principal said those cases have happened over the span of years. One auto theft was reported at the school in 1991, the Oceanside Police Department reports.

A Camp Pendleton spokesman said military police officials didn’t want to be interviewed about the school, saying primary jurisdiction belongs to Oceanside police.

Perhaps the dispute over safety may quiet soon.

In late February, about the time the anonymous letter was drawing media interest, Goldstein asked the school district to meet with her to discuss further safety measures.

District spokesman Dan Armstrong said late last week that lights will be added, and that “we’re working on a fencing plan now” because of the incident involving Valentin.