School Board to Ask Rosen to Step Down

Colleagues of a Ventura County Board of Education member accused of molesting a 6-year-old girl more than 30 years ago are asking him to step down from the panel while he stands trial on the charges.

But Albert Rosen, 74, a retired schoolteacher, said he has no plans to comply with the request, set for discussion today.

“There’s no reason for me to resign,” Rosen said last week. “I was elected and I’m on my 13th year.”

Rosen said he will not run for reelection when his term expires next fall, although he said the decision is not related to the charges pending against him.

“As much as I’ve loved being on that board--it’s given me a lot of good feelings--13 years is enough,” Rosen said.

At the county school board’s Nov. 26 meeting, trustee Yvonne Bodle asked that a letter be written requesting Rosen take a voluntary leave of absence until his case is resolved. Rosen cannot be removed from office until he is convicted on any of the 10 felony charges he faces.

“It’s an embarrassing situation for the schools, the parents and us,” Bodle said. “It’s bringing a negative connotation to the board of trustees.”

The draft letter, dated Dec. 10, said board members believe Rosen’s presence at school functions while the charges are pending will disrupt the business of the panel. The county school board oversees special education programs, teacher training workshops, classes for incarcerated juveniles and the Gateway continuation schools.

Rosen was arrested in May on suspicion of molesting two children between 1966 and 1970. The months-long investigation by Ventura County authorities was prompted by a complaint to Simi Valley police last year from one of the alleged victims, now a 44-year-old man.

The charges involving the boy were dismissed by a judge in October because they were not filed within a year of the man’s 1997 report to Los Angeles police. But Rosen is scheduled to stand trial beginning Jan. 30 on charges involving the girl, now a 42-year-old woman.

“I think we can prove all of the charges against him, and I think we will get convictions,” said Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Ernesto Acosta, who is handling the case. “But under our system of law, people are innocent until proven guilty. I have no opinion on whether he should step down; that is a decision for the board to make.”

Rosen’s attorney did not return calls for comment. Though Rosen would not talk about the charges against him, he said the board’s request for him to step down is “very political.”

“I’m the victim, in a way,” Rosen said.

At a preliminary hearing in October, the man and woman testified that Rosen sexually abused them on several occasions when they were children. The woman said she remembered the abuse happening at a vacant home Rosen owned on Bernard Street in Simi Valley and while she slept at the Rosen family home in Simi Valley.

Allegations of abuse involving the same two people have surfaced on several occasions in the past 20 years, including in Rosen’s divorce proceedings in the 1980s and in an anonymous letter to the board of education in 1990.

Rosen’s teaching credential was revoked after the state attorney general filed an accusation on behalf of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing in 1991, according to court documents.

In October of this year, board members asked for an opinion from the county counsel about restricting Rosen’s activities as a trustee.

The move came after two Simi Valley residents expressed outrage in letters and public comments at board meetings that an “accused pedophile” was being allowed access to school events with children present. One of the residents asked that Rosen be accompanied by a police escort at such events.

But Donald O. Hurley, assistant county counsel, said the most the board could do was ask Rosen to step down or take a leave of absence voluntarily.

It is up to Rosen’s constituents to take any further action on the matter, said Mark Cooper, former president of the California County Boards of Education. Rosen has been reelected twice and collects a $150 monthly meeting stipend and a medical benefits package.

“Personally, to me, it’s an outrageous situation,” said Cooper, a county board member in Clear Lake. “But he reflects the values and the standards of the people who elected him.”