Brewer’s apology to parents isn’t enough

The parent meeting Thursday night at Markham Middle School was originally scheduled to address concerns about a school district plan to put troubled high schoolers on the middle-school campus.

Instead, it turned into a forum about another bad choice: the district’s decision to saddle their school with an assistant principal suspected of sexual improprieties with a former student.

The administrator, Steve Thomas Rooney, was arrested last week and charged with committing “forcible lewd acts” on a 13-year-old Markham student.

Rooney had been assigned to Markham last fall, after being removed from Fremont High earlier that year in the wake of allegations that he had a sexual relationship with a girl he taught at his previous school.

The girl told Los Angeles police that she and Rooney, 39, began having sex when she was 16. He had been her health teacher at Foshay Learning Center. No charges were filed because the girl -- by then 18 -- refused to testify. A few months later, the district sent Rooney to Markham.

Parents -- who knew nothing of Rooney’s history -- were shocked and angry when school officials notified them of Rooney’s arrest. He allegedly forced the Markham student into his car, took her to his home and assaulted her.

More than 100 parents turned out Thursday night, seeking an explanation from Los Angeles Unified Supt. David Brewer.

“I’m deeply, deeply sorry,” Brewer said, again and again. “It’s taken my breath away. . . . It’s very disheartening.” The audience applauded his contrition, but didn’t give up.

“We’re sick and tired of you guys putting your garbage in our community,” said Eloisa Espinoza, whose eighth-grade daughter is the alleged victim’s friend. “And we want it to stop.”

Her voice was loud, but trembling.

From the outside, Markham has the austere look of a penal institution, spread out over a city block with wire-covered windows and an iron gate around its perimeter. Inside, the campus looks clean and well-kept. Flowers bloom and bright murals decorate the walls.

Markham is considered one of the district’s most difficult schools to run. Almost 700 of its 1,500 students are immigrants, just learning English. One-third of its teachers are rookies. With a 40% transiency rate, almost half its students leave during the school year and are replaced by newcomers.

More than 70% of the students are Latinos, and most of the parents at Thursday’s meeting wore headsets to listen to a Spanish translator.

When they lined up to be heard by the district’s boss, they were upset about more than Rooney.

They complained about drug-addict parents and kids who come to school drunk or high. Teachers who show movies in class and tell parents “keep your kid at home if you don’t like it.” Stolen backpacks and calculators and lunch tickets. Kids afraid to come to school and parents too worried to make them. A principal too busy putting out fires to listen.

“This is like a jungle,” said Ernesto Flores, whose wife is looking for a job so they can afford to send their children to private school. “Our kids are survivors,” he said. “But you have to be very strong to survive.”

Like almost every speaker, Flores was unfailingly polite. “We’re grateful to you for being here,” he told Brewer in Spanish. “But we want you to do something about the situation. Your kids are not coming here. If they were here, they would not survive.”

Brewer dutifully took notes and nodded.

And I couldn’t help thinking that if all this was happening at my daughter’s former middle school in Northridge -- and all Brewer did when he met with parents was take notes and apologize -- he would need bodyguards to survive the night.

Brewer couldn’t tell parents much about Rooney. The investigation, he said, is still ongoing.

Instead of answers, he brought bureaucrats: The district police chief talked about campus safety and urged parents to monitor their children. A parent educator narrated a slide show on parental involvement and encouraged fathers to be especially nice to their daughters. A specialist in sexual abuse lectured the parents, and children, about oral sex and STDs and “fatherly kisses.”

And I wondered what any of this advice to parents had to do with the issue at hand: how a district employee suspected of sexual transgressions wound up with access to their daughters.

The district’s official policy seems fairly straightforward. Because the school system has a “heightened responsibility for the safety of its students,” the district’s investigation should not have been closed when the LAPD closed its. Even in the absence of criminal charges, teachers should be held to a higher standard.

Common sense says you don’t put a teacher you believe had sex with his 16-year-old student on a middle-school campus full of needy and naive girls, many new to this country. If the well-being of kids is a priority, you don’t need a book of rules to tell you that.

The meeting ended with the parent educator asking the audience to embrace this pledge, flashed on a screen above the stage:

“Because I love you . . . I will do everything and anything to protect you and keep you safe and make sure you can succeed in life.”

I looked around the auditorium at fathers in dirty work clothes bouncing toddlers, weary mothers cradling babies and gently shushing older sisters and brothers. They don’t need slide shows and lectures, I thought.

They turned out because they love their children.

What they need now is for district bosses to take that pledge and protect their kids.

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sandy.banks@latimes.com