May 26, 2005

San Jose Unified District officials deny accusations
of a cover-up in Leland sex scandal

Parents say more could have been done to remove teacher from classroom

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

San Jose Unified School District officials tried Monday to convince parents that they lacked sufficient evidence last school year to fire a Leland High School teacher now arrested and charged with seven felony counts for various sex crimes against two students.

During a meeting at district headquarters May 23, district officials, including Leland High School principal Bob Setterlund, said they could not put chemistry teacher Earl Thomas Roske on administrative leave or terminate his employment earlier because a police investigation last year failed to produce concrete evidence against him.

“The principal called us and asked if there was anything we could do, but there wasn’t concrete evidence to take action against this teacher,” said Mike Carr, SJUSD director of student services. “We would have immediately acted on a verifiable complaint of molestation.”

A total of seven parents attended the meeting, organized by Linda Salah, whose 15-year-old daughter, Jenna, took Roske’s honor’s chemistry class.

Since the teacher’s arrest May 6, Salah has been talking to parents about their concerns. The parents want to discern if the district and the school could have done something with the teacher earlier to prevent him from committing the alleged crimes.

Roske, 41, remains in jail on a $1 million warrant. He’s been charged with seven felony counts involving various sex crimes committed against at least two minor students. On May 20, his attorney, Chris Schumb, finally returned several calls left by the Almaden Times Weekly on his answering machine. He declined comment.

San Jose police spokesman Enrique Garcia said investigators are continuing to collect evidence against Roske and looking at additional victims. He said detectives will present an additional police report with Roske’s original felony complaint in Santa Clara County Superior Court and with the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office.

Roske was arraigned May 9 on one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, two counts of oral copulation with a minor, two counts of using a minor to produce child pornography and two counts of sending harmful matter to a minor. He could serve a minimum of 16 months or a maximum of seven years in jail if convicted. Roske will appear before the court May 31 for identification of counsel and a plea status conference, which means he either plead guilty, not guilty or ask for more time to prepare a defense or try to settle the case.

Salah said she’s learned of a parent whose daughter was receiving e-mails with a sexual content from Roske four years ago. She said the parent sent an anonymous letter to the school complaining about the teacher. After the girl graduated, the parents and the girl met with school administrators to complain about the teacher’s alleged inappropriate behavior.

At the end of the one-and-half-hour Monday meeting, parents were still doubtful that district and school officials couldn’t have done something to remove Roske from the classroom last year or even earlier to protect the students.

“Why is it that we had so many complaints against this teacher and nothing was done?” Salah asked. “Our children’s voices weren’t heard.”

Parent Steve Brauer, whose two children attend Leland, pressed Luis Gonzales, the district’s director of human resources, for the exact number of complaints logged against Roske. Gonzales said he could not divulge the information, but acknowledged they “nowhere neared 50.”

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. I can’t believe that you didn’t put safeguards in place to protect the students,” Brauer lamented. “There’s much more that could have been done. Not enough safeguards were put into place given the number of complaints made against this man… If you have several complaints against a person there’s got to be something there.”

Gonzales said the district didn’t investigate the teacher last school year because police officials where in the middle of their investigation and had cautioned them against continuing their own probe to avoid contaminating their effort.

He explained once the police tell district officials that they have found no wrongdoing, they can proceed with their investigation.

Gonzales added the district uses so-called “progressive discipline” as a process in evaluating its 1,800 teachers stipulated in their working contracts under guidelines prescribed by the San Jose Teachers Association.

Setterlund assured parents all complaints received by his office are investigated. He said when the school receives complaints that could be criminal or involve sexual harassment, they’re immediately turned over to the police for investigation and district officials are alerted.

“We don’t want to be accused of a screw-up. We don’t want any resemblance of a cover-up,” he said, adding that it was not until April 29; the day police detectives had enough evidence to search Roske’s home, school office and vehicle with a warrant, that the school immediately placed the teacher on administrative leave.

District spokeswoman Karen Fuqua said school officials and district administrators had “no clue” that the police had reopened the case and were investigating Roske and interviewing witnesses this school year. “The first we knew of their interest in the case was on April 29 when they came to Leland High School with a search warrant,” Fuqua said. “As far as I know there hadn’t been any complaints against this teacher this year.”

Carr said in the seven years he’s been responsible for district student services he always communicates to new teachers in clear and simple terms what’s appropriate and inappropriate teacher-student contact. He said he tells teachers never to be alone with students, never to touch them and never to use familiar names with them, among other precautions.

Student safeguards
Carr said when Roske was hired from Washington state to teach chemistry at Leland in 1998, the district screened him for a previous criminal record through fingerprinting and three references, the standard screening requirement followed by state school districts and mandated by the California Board of Education. Nothing was discovered to raise red flags against his hiring, he said.

Brauer, however, said more protections need to be put in place to further screen teachers such as requiring them to take a polygraph test and conducting background checks. “These teachers are with our kids and they have a tremendous amount of power over them,” he said.

In response, Gonzales said administering a polygraph test on all teachers would be expensive considering the district has 3,000 employees, 1,800 of those are educators.

“We feel you dropped the ball on us. Given all the smoke, there had to be fire there. It’s painfully obvious,” Brauer said.

A sergeant with the Santa Clara Police Department, Brauer suggested that after initial complaints were made against Roske, the district could have also placed a pinhole camera in his classroom ceiling to videotape his actions and screen for inappropriate behavior with students. “There’s no expectation of privacy in the classroom. It would show all the activity going on between the teacher and the students. Anybody can videotape anyone in a public place,” he said.

Parent Jan Koval said: “There’s a gap responding to these situations. The holes have to be plugged so the students feel safe. This was a black eye and it hurt.”

Parent Meri Maben complained about the way the school handled students’ concerns after Roske was arrested.

She said the response was impersonal and textured. She said although a counselor was provided, many students felt embarrassed to speak about their feelings fearing other students would ridicule them. “A teaching opportunity was lost,” she said. “My son was told by the administration not to talk about it.”

Carr said school officials discouraged students from speaking about the case because police have told them that when they do they can muddy their investigations.

Koval also suggested training teachers on a yearly basis about appropriate behavior toward students. She asked the district to consider including more student-friendly language about appropriate behavior in the student handbook.

Parent Manny Verra said teachers also need to be told not to give out their personal e-mail addresses to students and encouraged administrators to require teachers to only use district-issued e-mail addresses to correspond with parents and students.

Sexual harassment training
Parent Jocelyn Champlin asked the district to develop age-appropriate sexual harassment training at Leland because many students she’s spoken with can’t distinguish the difference between campus gossip and real harassment.

Champlin was surprised that school officials claimed they were unaware students called Roske “the rapist,” among other nicknames and that despite rumors, students still didn’t come forward to denounce what many thought was inappropriate teacher-student behavior.

SJUSD Assistant Superinten-dent Rosa Molina announced district and school administrators would begin a series of workshops on sexual harassment at Leland next year. She said the district is also considering working with the Santa Clara Valley-Rape Crisis Center counselors or San Jose’s Project Cornerstone, a Santa Clara County program that supports individuals and organizations that nurture and protect children, to assist students with sexual assault issues.

Carr also disclosed the district’s launching of an anonymous tip line next month where students, parents and community members can report complaints, which will be investigated. The board of education is expected to hear a presentation on the tip line during its June 2 meeting at district headquarters. Three students will receive cash awards from the SJTA for posters they designed to promote the service, offered with the assistance of the San Jose Police Department.

Parental accountability
Molina said parents need to be aware that their children could be exposed to dangerous and illegal situations by unsupervised use of the Internet. “Our kids are vulnerable,” she said.

San Jose Unified School District trustee Leslie Reynolds, who represents many Almaden Valley schools, said parents also need to make sure their children know discussing certain topics with teachers online may be inappropriate.

Original police report on Leland teacher investigation reveals school
knew of possible wrongdoing as early as August of 2002

The first police report prepared by San Jose police officers about the investigation into former Leland High School chemistry teacher Earl Thomas Roske reveals that school officials knew as early as August of 2002 of complaints against him which went unreported.

According to the report, on April 21, 2004, former Leland High School Principal Susan Votaw contacted an officer working with the School Safety Liaison Unit alerting him that she had received an anonymous letter through the U.S. Postal service alleging Roske was having ongoing consensual and sexual relations with current and former students. Detectives responded and met with Votaw on April 22, 2004.

The report also reveals that Votaw contacted San Jose Unified School District’s department of human resources about the letter, which directed her to contact the police.

The officer took the letter as evidence and detectives with the San Jose Police Department Sexual Assault Investigation Unit began following up on the case gathering Roske’s student roster and contacting numerous students who could have been victims, as they had been identified in the letter by their first names. Detectives conducted many interviews with students.

Detectives presented the report to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office, which could not prosecute the case due to insufficient evidence. “If there’s no evidence to support that a crime occurred than our hands are tied,” said San Jose police spokesman Enrique Garcia. “We did our job, but there wasn’t anything else we could have done at the time.”

During last year’s investigation officers also learned that the school had additionally received an anonymous letter dated Aug. 13, 2002, alleging Roske had sexually harassed a female student. Votaw told officers that the letter accused Roske of inappropriately touching a female student throughout the course of the school year and sent her “flirtatious” e-mails. The student was removed from Roske’s classroom.

Officers, however, didn’t learn of the letter’s existence until last year, said Garcia.

The report also stated that in April of 2004 detectives learned of several prior incidents of contact between Roske and students, which Votaw felt were inappropriate, which caused her to counsel the teacher.

The Almaden Times Weekly attempted to get the report from the San Jose Police Department and Garcia provided a synopsis of the investigation during a telephone interview. Since no criminal complaint was filed as a result of the original investigation, the report was never included in Roske’s felony complaint. Prosecution and defense attorneys will obtain the report as they prepare the case for the court process.

—By Sheila Sanchez