Staff Misconduct Alleged at S. Pasadena Private School : Education: Authorities, investigating claims of abuse, give few details. Parents assail police tactics; school denies wrongdoing.

Authorities said Friday that they are investigating allegations of misconduct--including alleged physical, sexual and emotional abuse--by staff members at a small private elementary and junior high school in South Pasadena.

“It is a multi-victim, multi-suspect, multi-allegation investigation,” said Lt. Stuart Heller of the Sheriff’s Department Juvenile Investigation Bureau. “Based on the allegations made, there is a potential of serious misconduct there.”

South Pasadena Police Chief Thomas E. Mahoney said the investigation involves current and former students at the 130-student Stancliff School, a small campus of stucco buildings squeezed between railroad tracks and an apartment building on Arroyo Verde Road at the west end of town.

Stancliff officials denied wrongdoing and have pledged to cooperate with authorities. In a letter to parents Friday, Principal Judith Thayer urged parents to make their children available to investigators. No arrests have been made and the school remains open, although about one-quarter of the students were absent Friday.

“I am confident that the truth will be told and that (the) allegations will ultimately prove to be utterly false,” Thayer said in the letter.

Police would not provide details of the alleged abuse or indicate the number of alleged victims, saying the investigation was too sensitive and too preliminary. In a separate letter to parents, Mahoney said authorities are trying to “sort fact from rumor” in the case.

Stancliff owner Cleo Thayer, who turned over operation of the school to her daughter about 10 years ago, said she was hurt and outraged by the allegations and what she described as “Waco-like” police tactics. Several dozen police officers, some from as far as Culver City and Covina, served a search warrant at the school Thursday afternoon, confiscating files and interviewing students and staff.

“They haven’t even told us what it is all about,” said Thayer, 76, who has owned the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school for more than 30 years. “I am just sorry for the parents who have such faith in us. You know how much damage can be done until the truth prevails.”

During a brief tour of the cramped campus, which sits behind an eight-foot-high fence and electric gate, Cleo Thayer said the school is too small for any abuse to occur unnoticed. “If there is a place you could find to do something wrong, I would like them to find it,” she said.

Several angry parents gathered outside the school Friday to voice their support for the Thayers and the school’s dozen teachers. Some parents complained that their children were interviewed behind their backs during a meeting called by police for parents, while others said their children were afraid to return to school because of Thursday’s police activity.

“My son was terrorized--by the police,” said Lila Holman. “He said commandos came into the school. I had to stay up all night with him.”

Police defended their tactics, saying they were following a countywide protocol for investigating child abuse allegations established after the McMartin PreSchool case in the late 1980s. Under the protocol, South Pasadena police sought the assistance of several other law enforcement agencies and interviewers were given limited information about the allegations so as not to ask leading questions of the children, Heller said.

“I really do empathize with the parents,” Mahoney said. “Their anger is directed at us right now. There is some truth to what they say happens to the messenger.”

In a separate matter, the state Department of Social Services cited Stancliff on Thursday for accepting preschool-age children without a license. In a 2-month-old dispute with the agency, Stancliff has argued that its 3- and 4-year-olds are enrolled in kindergarten, not preschool, but state officials ruled against the school two weeks ago.