Teachers key to keeping students safe

Deepa Bharath

The key to children’s safety in schools lies in the hands of a

very important group of people -- their teachers.

Most students trust their teachers, follow their example and,

oftentimes, are inspired by them.

That’s why hiring the right person to do the job is so important,

officials say. It’s a job that has become even tougher in a time

marred by unpleasant incidents on campus, including those involving

allegations of sexual assault and molestation.

Newport Beach alone has seen three such incidents involving

children and teenagers in the last several months. The first one

involved Trenton Veches, a recreation coordinator accused of sucking

young boys’ toes. Police arrested him after confiscating several

digital images from his home computer showing him committing the act

with several boys who participated in the city’s recreation programs

that Veches supervised. Veches quit his job and is awaiting trial.

In March, 32-year-old John Ronald Evans, a popular math teacher

and soccer coach at Corona del Mar High School, was arrested on

suspicion of having a sexual relationship with a student, police

said. Evans, who posted his $50,000 bail, was placed on

administrative leave by the Newport-Mesa Unified School District

pending the outcome of the investigation.

Most recently, on Sept. 13, 35-year-old substitute teacher Todd

Jerome Haluch was arrested on 13 felony counts involving sexually

assaulting minors, all said to be girls between 13 and 17 years of

age, police said.

The alleged crimes were discovered after a therapist treating a

victim reported the incident to the police. Detectives who

investigated the case determined that the alleged assaults did take

place and that there were more victims. Haluch is out on a $250,000

bail.

Checking facts

Newport Beach school and city officials say they had done

everything right in terms of background checks. The state requires

fingerprint and other checks for city employees before they can be

hired, Newport Beach City Manager Homer Bludau said.

In Veches’ case, he passed all the checks with flying colors and

came to the city with good references, Bludau said.

“How much deeper can you go then,” Bludau asked. “Theoretically

you could send people to interview neighbors. But we do that only for

high-level positions, not for a recreation coordinator. That’s just

not a good use of our resources.”

School officials face other challenges, said Supt. Robert Barbot,

of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

“The challenge we face has to do with what’s on the record and

what’s not,” he said. “There is some information we just cannot get,

and if we don’t get it we don’t know it happened.”

For example, Barbot said, if there were an incident in which a

teacher was accused of molesting a student and the case was dismissed

because of a lack of evidence, then that information is not on the

teacher’s record.

“Sometimes, attorneys work out deals with schools and require that

they keep some information confidential and off the record,” Barbot

said. “In such cases, when we call references, they are legally bound

and can’t talk about what happened.”

Barbot said such loopholes allow prospective offenders to slip

into schools despite stringent checks.

“I believe that when it’s issues involving sexual harassment and

there have been accusations, there should be some way by which

districts should be able to share that information without the fear

of being sued,” he said.

That may seem like an invasion of privacy, but it is necessary,

Barbot said.

“If we had no problems in our society that may not be required,”

he said. “But look at the things that happen. It’s an issue that must

be looked at and corrected by legislative groups. The safety of our

children is at stake here.”

Then again, no test is a 100% foolproof, Bludau said.

“Let’s face it, we’re dealing with an imperfect world,” he said.

“All we can do is fingerprint them, check their background and

references and hope for the best. And it’s still possible that the

person who seems to be your best candidate would turn out to be a

child molester. How do you determine whether a person has such

tendencies or not if he has not done it in the past?”

Learning the solution

In the absence of a perfect system, the best way to deal with the

problem from the schools’ and students’ point of view is to educate

students as well as teachers, Barbot said.

“We have a pretty strong sexual harassment policy,” he said. “If

there’s a problem, we ask kids to let us know. We do programs,

assemblies and tell them in the classroom. The more knowledge they

have, the better it is because it can help stop such incidents from

happening.”

School board Trustee Martha Fluour said the board would consider

conducting special training sessions for teachers on the issue of

sexual harassment.

“Of course, it is an issue that is covered as part of their

regular training,” she said. “But years ago we had these sessions

that we heard proved very helpful and it might not be a bad idea to

do them again.”

It is also important to make sure students realize they have a

safe place where they can talk, Fluour said.

“In many of these cases we come to know about it because the

student talked to a therapist or went to the police,” she said. “They

need to be confident enough to be able to come to us. Students need

to know that we will maintain confidentiality and take the problem

very, very seriously.”

Mike McGuire, principal of Ensign Middle School, said his students

learn about and discuss such issues in their health education

classes.

“As a principal, I only make recommendations in terms of hiring

people,” he said. “But our primary job is to make the school safe.

Educating our children is an important part of that.”

Students, from a very young age, are taught that they need to

report any behavior “that is out of the ordinary,” McGuire said.

“It’s not just the children,” he said. “All of us need to be more

in tune with these issues today than we were 10 or 15 years ago.”

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at [email protected].