OXNARD : Suit Alleges Teacher Hit Boy During Class

An Oxnard boy and his parents filed a civil claim Monday against Ocean View School District alleging that the boy’s teacher hit him during a class last June.

Jorge Serafin Jasso, 13, and his parents, filed the claim seeking an undetermined amount of money from the district in compensation for “past and future pain and suffering” and other injury.

Jorge said he was walking to his seat June 14 at Ocean View Junior High when his teacher, Joseph Carnahan, 44, slapped him on the back of his neck and knocked off his baseball cap. Carnahan was not available for comment Monday. But Donald Baer, a teacher’s representative with the California Teachers Assn., said the allegations that Carnahan intentionally hit the student were untrue.

“The child failed to oblige to the teacher’s request to take his hat off,” Baer said. “So the teacher removed the hat by hitting the bill of the hat.”

The district, which has not yet responded to the claim, is investigating the incident, a district official said.

Jorge said he plans to continue classes in the eighth grade at Ocean View Junior High. But his mother, Maria de la Luz Jasso, said her son has been upset since the incident. “He is traumatized because the teacher who was supposed to educate and help him to become a good citizen mistreated him,” she said.

Ocean View School District Supt. Donald Hodes said Carnahan has not been scheduled to teach at the junior high school this fall. But he added that Jorge’s complaint was the first against Carnahan.