School District Delays Release of Sexual Harassment Report

Ventura Unified School District officials Tuesday refused to release a report on sexual harassment complaints against a former high school coach, citing a legal action filed against the district by the family of a teen-age victim.

Former Ventura High School football coach Harvey Kochel, 48, was sentenced last month to two years in prison after pleading guilty to six felony counts of having sex with a minor. The girl was 15 when the relationship started last year, and it lasted about seven months.

According to court documents and testimony at Kochel’s sentencing hearing, female students had complained about sexual advances from the coach for more than 10 years, but no serious disciplinary action was ever taken against him.

District officials last month hired attorney Mary Jo McGrath, a specialist in sexual harassment cases, to investigate how the school handled complaints against Kochel.

Her report was scheduled to be disclosed publicly at a district board meeting Tuesday, but board members instead held a closed session to hear the report. School Board President John Walker said the district’s attorney, Donald F. Austin, advised board members not to release the report.

“It appears that there may be some litigation involved, and because of that, our mouths are zipped,” Walker said in an interview. Austin declined to comment.

Walker said the girl’s family filed a claim against the district last week, before McGrath finished her investigation. Other district officials refused to release a copy of the claim.

Steven Effres, the family’s attorney, said the claim is a prelude to a lawsuit, assuming the district follows the typical practice of government agencies and rejects the claim.

“The school and the school district failed to take appropriate action, despite Kochel’s abuse of female students,” Effres said. He declined to say how much money the family is seeking, but said: “The family is undergoing counseling and therapy. We just want justice for the family.”

District Supt. Joe Spirito said he intends to release the report after the litigation is resolved.

“I believe the public has a right to know what we knew, when we knew it, and what we did about it,” Spirito said in an interview.

Spirito, who became acting superintendent last August, reported Kochel to police in September after the girl’s stepfather told him about finding 49 letters from the coach in his daughter’s bedroom, many of them sexually explicit.

Even after Kochel turned himself over to police, school officials denied having received any previous complaints about him. It was not until after the coach pleaded guilty that school officials admitted that they knew about widespread rumors of Kochel acting improperly with female students.

Former Ventura High School principal Robert Cousar has said that he had received complaints about Kochel’s behavior and had lectured the coach several times, but could do nothing without a witness or a victim willing to cooperate in an investigation.

In other action, the school board Tuesday approved a revised policy against sexual harassment, procedures that were updated partly in response to the Kochel case, Walker said.

The new policy delineates more clearly what is unacceptable behavior in dealing with students, Walker said.

The district has also put together a handbook for teachers and administrators on how to better deal with complaints of sexual harassment.