VENTURA : Accused Teacher Sues to Challenge Firing

A Ventura teacher who was fired last month after being accused of inappropriately touching and teasing his students has filed suit against the school district to challenge his dismissal.

Bryan D. Bowman, a former special education teacher at Blanche Reynolds School, filed the lawsuit in Ventura County Superior Court on Tuesday, asking for reimbursement of the wages lost since his Oct. 14 firing.

Bowman could not be reached for comment.

His suit contends that the Ventura Unified School District officials violated the state education code by dismissing him.

School officials refused to discuss the lawsuit because it is a personnel issue.

But when the district fired Bowman, Supt. Joseph Spirito signed a statement of charges that listed more than 40 complaints lodged against the teacher from 1990 to 1993.

The history of complaints culminated in May, 1993, when one mother reported to the Ventura Police Department that her daughter, a student of Bowman’s, said her teacher “had touched her private parts over her clothing.”

The district attorney’s office said Wednesday said that no charges were filed as a result of this complaint.

The district’s list of complaints against Bowman included allegations that two of the teacher’s colleagues had seen him laughing and pointing at one of his students who had undressed himself from the waist down.

Teachers and teachers’ aides at Blanche Reynolds also reported seeing Bowman tease his students to the point of making them cry.

At other times, Bowman’s colleagues said, they observed him holding children in his lap for 10 to 20 minutes at a time, despite warnings from school officials against doing so.