Former Assistant Coach Arrested in Sex Case

A former assistant track coach at Simi Valley High School was arrested Wednesday for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old female student.

Robert America of Simi Valley was booked into County Jail on suspicion of statutory rape, Simi Valley police reported.

Police said the 22-year-old’s relationship with the now 17-year-old female was consensual, lasting about a year and ending in December.

A district source, who asked not to be identified, said America had been fired in the spring of 1996 over a “similar incident.”

America, a blond with blue eyes, was not a teacher at the school, but was a paid assistant coach of both the boys and girls track teams for about two years before his firing, the source said. Assistant coaches are paid a stipend of between $800 and $1,800 per season, according to district officials.

“I think it’s important to remember that everyone is innocent until proven guilty,” said Simi Valley High social studies and government teacher Rob Collins, a teachers union member. He added that many teachers accused of having sex with students are later cleared.

Collins said he assisted America last year when the assistant track coach was knocked unconscious by a loose weight in the school’s weight room.

Reached at home, Susan Parks, deputy superintendent of personnel for the Simi Valley Unified School District, said school officials routinely fingerprint nonteaching employees and checked America’s references before hiring him.

“I’m glad the parents took action to report it,” she said. “That behavior is not OK.”

Parks said she could think of two previous times in her seven years with the district in which there were inappropriate sexual relationships between coaches and students. She would not be more specific, but said neither of those coaches remained in the district.

“It’s certainly not common . . . most people we hire have a sense of what they’re supposed to do and what they’re not supposed to do,” she said.

Trustee Carla Kurachi said she was unfamiliar with the specifics of the situation.

The hiring and firing of walk-on coaches is usually handled by the school principal and the head coach, she said.

“The only time [that decision] would come to the school board would be if it was a teacher who was a coach,” according to Kurachi.

Incidents of sexual impropriety among students and coaches are rare, she said.

“A lot of times coaches are like a second mom or dad to these kids,” Kurachi said. “Sometimes boundaries can get blurred. I think in Simi Valley, we do a good job of telling our coaches what we expect and what we don’t expect from them. We expect them to have a professional relationship. They do sign a coach’s code of ethics.” School board trustee Diane Collins, wife of teacher Rob Collins, declined comment on the alleged incident.

Other school officials did not return phone calls Wednesday evening.

Correspondent Richard Warchol contributed to this report.