Teacher Won’t Face Charges for Clash Outside Gay Support Club

Charges will not be filed against a Fountain Valley High School teacher who a 17-year-old student said assaulted him while trying to prevent him from attending a meeting of a support group for gay students on campus, police said Tuesday.

The student, whose name was not released, filed an assault-and-battery report with the Police Department on the evening of the Feb. 17 incident, which allegedly occurred as the Student Alliance was about to begin a meeting after school.

Police Sgt. Dann Bean, who investigated the complaint, said that the Orange County district attorney’s office will not be pursuing the matter.

“The district attorney’s office did not feel it was a case for the criminal justice system,” Bean said.

The student alleged that the unidentified teacher tried to keep him out of the meeting and that he was hit in the face by the teacher’s forearm. The sergeant said the student pushed his way into the meeting, then claimed he was struck by the teacher.

“You have to prove a willfulness on the teacher’s part to actually injure the student, and it’s not believed by the district attorney or the police that the teacher tried to injure the student in this case,” Bean said.

The Student Alliance has been the center of a politically charged debate between supporters of the group and those opposed to allowing it to meet on campus.

In January, the Huntington Beach Union High School District Board of Trustees voted to keep a district policy that allows student groups not related to the curriculum to meeting on campus.