Teacher Held in Kidnapping

A popular science teacher and her 15-year-old student, apparently tangled in an intimate relationship that has equally captivated and horrified their school, were discovered Thursday in a Las Vegas hotel room where they had fled together, authorities said.

Tanya Joan Hadden, 33, a Cajon High School teacher, and Richard Pena, a 15-year-old freshman, were found by police investigators in a room at the $39-a-night New Frontier Hotel & Gambling Hall, where Elvis Presley reportedly played his first Vegas gig in 1956.

Hadden was arrested in Las Vegas on suspicion of first-degree kidnapping for bringing a minor across state lines, and will be charged in San Bernardino with the unlawful “taking” of a child, said Lt. Frank Mankin of the San Bernardino Police Department.

Both charges are felonies, and a school district official said that Hadden will probably be placed on administrative leave while the school conducts its own investigation, and then fired.

The teacher also may face a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor because authorities believe she may have served alcohol to Pena and another male student at an April 26 party in Rialto, said Lt. Kathy Thompson of the Rialto Police Department. The investigation into that party--first reported to police by one of the boys’ sisters three days later--may have prompted the pair to flee to Las Vegas, authorities said.

Pena was in protective custody Thursday. Classmates and teachers described him as a bright student and seemingly well-adjusted teenager who was in Hadden’s first-period science class,

His parents, Herman and Ida Pena, were being escorted Thursday night to the California-Nevada border to be reunited with their son, a day after making a tearful plea for his safe return, authorities said.

Investigators are looking into allegations that Hadden and Pena had an improper relationship for at least five weeks.

“First and foremost, we should not send our kids to a school where they have to fear they may be abused by the teachers who are supposed to be taking care of them,” said Teresa Parra, a member of the San Bernardino City Unified School District board. “If it’s true, I hope she never teaches again.”

As students tumbled out of Cajon High on Thursday afternoon, their conflicted emotions tumbled out too.

They referred to the teacher as “Miss Hadden,” like they had every morning in science class. But they also referred to her in the past tense, as if she had vanished. They gleefully traded tawdry nuggets of gossip.

On Thursday, students needed little else to talk about, teachers tried hard to stay above the fray and parents struggled for words with their children.

“My son graduates in June, so luckily we are out of here,” said Kim Brown, who lives behind the school in northern San Bernardino amid rose gardens, Spanish-tile roofs, backyard barbecues and basketball hoops in every other driveway. Brown was waiting to pick up her son’s girlfriend after school.

“It just goes to show you that you can’t be too careful with your kids no matter where they go, even in school,” she said. “You think they’re safe, other than the guns and the drugs.”

Brown’s daughter graduated from Cajon High in 1996, and went on to become a schoolteacher, and her son, Peter, a pitcher on the school baseball team, is a senior.

“I remember when I was in school,” Kim Brown said. “The kids would have a crush on the teacher. Not the other way around. What does a 15-year-old boy have to offer an adult?”

It’s far from the first time in Southern California, which has shouldered more than its share of scandals involving teachers and students over the years.

The region was only peripherally involved in perhaps the best-known case, when elementary school teacher Mary Kay LeTourneau was found guilty of having sex with a sixth-grader.

LeTourneau, who was 36 at the time, later gave birth to a daughter and said the 13-year-old student was the father. LeTourneau, sentenced to more than seven years in prison in 1997, is the daughter of a former Orange County congressman.

Many years earlier, a similar case captivated the Los Angeles area. Fourteen-year-old Ellsworth “Sonny” Wisecarver, who eloped with a 21-year-old mother of two in spring 1944, earned himself the nickname “L.A. Lothario” and then, in Life magazine, “The Woo Woo Boy, the world’s greatest lover.”

Wisecarver’s tale was turned into a movie, “In the Mood,” starring Patrick Dempsey, in 1987.

The Hadden-Pena case is the second of its kind this year at Cajon High. About two months ago, another female teacher, Linda Martinez, left the school amid allegations that she was having a relationship with a male student, Parra said. The student denied it and no charges were filed, but the school board still terminated her, the school official said.

School officials insisted they have done all they can to screen for these sorts of incidents, including background checks and fingerprint tests.

“I don’t know what more we can do to stop something like this from happening,” said Barbara Wyatt, a school district spokeswoman. “We don’t want any improper relationship, but how much can you do to avoid it?”

Pena is a precocious teen who will raise his hand to answer a teacher’s question--provided he is sure he knows the answer, friends said with a laugh--as he did while reading “Antigone” in a recent English class.

He is enrolled in a program called AVID, or Advanced Via Individual Determination, a type of college preparatory program, said classmate Danielle Holleman, 15, a sophomore.

Hadden was quite popular among students. Several recalled Thursday that they enjoyed going to some of her science classes. The classes were filled with educational games and exercises designed to introduce classmates to each other--a necessary step in a school with an estimated 3,000 students.

Many students went to her classroom after school just to do homework and hang out because it was more fun than going home, others said.

“Most teachers kind of treat you like a robot,” Holleman said. “She wasn’t like that. Some students do get close to teachers. If you have problems at home, they can be someone to talk to. She was a good person to talk to.”

Knowledge of a close relationship between Hadden and Pena appears to have been common knowledge, many students said Thursday. Not only were there widespread allegations about an intimate relationship, but Hadden often drove Pena and his friends home after school.

“You know how kids are,” said 15-year-old Dale Caddell, a sophomore, while pointing out that he will turn 16 in a matter of days. “They feel like it’s no big deal, and there is no use in getting in trouble just because you suspect something. Next thing you know, some kid disappears.”

Other students remained more surprised by the allegations.

“Not Miss Hadden!” said Jason Cruze, 16, a 10th-grader, upon learning that the pair had been caught together in a Las Vegas hotel room. “She was cool!”