Schools can still ‘pass the trash’ in teacher hires
California bill requiring the disclosure of sexual abuse allegations stymied
Among educators, it’s known as “passing the trash” — quietly releasing a teacher or employee accused of sexual impropriety with children without warning other schools that may want to hire them.
It is an issue that has resonated in the Bay Area: Graduates of a San Jose girls school have accused administrators of allowing a former theater director who admitted fondling a student to get a job at another school where he later was convicted on sex charges.
At the urging of victim rights advocates, four states have adopted laws that require schools and their accused employees to disclose such complaints to other schools looking to hire them.
But when such a bill went before an education committee in California’s legislature this month,
it met a buzz saw of opposition. Critics including the California Teachers Association and American Civil Liberties Union cited due process concerns, and the senator who authored the bill put it on ice after determining that proposed amendments would render it toothless.
“It got completely stripped,” said Terri Miller, president of Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation in Las Vegas, which sponsored the legislation, Senate Bill 1456.
California law already requires school officials to report complaints of child abuse to police or a county child welfare agency. In 2012, a San Jose school principal who didn’t tell police about a girl’s account of a weird, sexual-sounding activity while alone with her teacher was convicted of misdemeanor failure to report child abuse. The teacher was convicted of molesting five children.
But such cases are rare. And victims advocates say that while they are not supposed to, school officials often look into sex abuse complaints themselves and either do nothing or simply persuade the accused staffer to leave.
Kathryn Leehane, a graduate of San Jose’s Presentation High School, a prestigious Catholic girls school, has accused its principal of that sort of neglect. She said that despite her complaint to the principal that a language teacher had touched her inappropriately, kissed her hand and showed her a photo of a naked woman, the teacher remained on the staff for years until he retired.
Leehane, who wrote in October about her frustrations in a Washington Post article and has since led a group of other former Presentation students demanding more accountability from the school, testified last week before a state Senate Education Committee to support SB 1456.
Leehane said a family has come forward to report that a Presentation theater director in 2004, Jefferey Hicks, had admitted in front of Principal Mary Miller and parents that he inappropriately fondled a student, yet the school allowed him to finish out the year and move on quietly.
In 2014, Hicks was working as a science teacher at a private San Mateo school for children with learning disabilities when he was convicted of keeping child pornography at work and exchanging inappropriate messages with a 14-yearold student.
“This tragedy was entirely preventable,” Leehane told the education committee. “Our stories are the result of a tragically flawed system that allows institutions to protect their reputations and sexual abusers rather than children.”
Presentation spokesman Sam Singer said the school has no comment on the Hicks allegations concerning the school. He said a mediator facilitating discussion between the school and those who have accused its administration of failing to report their abusers has asked them not to comment publicly beforehand. The school has no position on the proposed bill, he said, but in general supports “all efforts to prevent or reduce sexual abuse, harassment and misconduct.”
Miller of the victims rights group said the proposed Sexual Abuse-Free Education (SAFE) Act carried by California Sen. Mike Morrell, R-Rancho Cucamonga, is similar to laws enacted in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Nevada and New Jersey and under consideration in Massachusetts and Oregon. But critics said it didn’t go far enough to protect the accused.
“These proposed measures would essentially bar anyone from employment in any school upon any allegation of child abuse or sexual misconduct with a child, with no due process or recourse for the person to challenge the allegations,” the ACLU said in a letter opposing the bill to the Senate Committee on Education.
The committee suggested amendments that would exclude non-teaching school personnel, such as bus drivers, secretaries and custodians, and removing a self-disclosure requirement for job applicants.
Morrell said later that “the amendments strip the bill of too many key components that would limit its impact and effectiveness.” His office said it would not be forwarded for further consideration this year.
Leehane said her group was “disappointed and appalled.”
“We need stronger vetting processes for the employees that work with our children, and this bill would have helped provide stronger protections for children,” Leehane said. “I’m alarmed those opposed to the bill aren’t prioritizing the safety of our children over everything else.”
“This tragedy was entirely preventable. Our stories are the result of a tragically flawed system that allows institutions to protect their reputations and sexual abusers rather than children.” — Kathryn Leehane, graduate of Presentation High School