School District Chief Is Put on Leave as Probe Is Revealed

The superintendent of the Bonita Unified School District that serves San Dimas and La Verne was placed on paid administrative leave Monday by the school board, which revealed an ongoing investigation into allegations against the district’s top educator.

The decision to place Supt. Ronald Raya on leave was taken at a highly unusual closed session of the school board Sunday morning, said President Ed Jones, who cited the board members’ conflicting schedules and complexity of the matter as the reason for the meeting’s timing.

In a statement, board members said the district had hired an attorney in June to investigate the allegations, but, citing legal advice, refused to disclose the probe’s nature. “We know that the public will be concerned by this change in district management. However, because of the possibility of litigation and because of the privacy rights that are properly accorded to personnel, we are limited in the amount of information that we can disclose,” the statement said.

Barbara Ward, a district spokeswoman, said that as far as she knows no criminal charges or litigation have been filed.

Raya became superintendent in 1992 after seven years as the top educator at Bassett Unified School District.

Adolphus Carter, the district’s former director of secondary education, will come out of retirement to temporarily serve as superintendent.