Los Angeles school officials transferred an assistant principal to a Watts middle school just months after he had been removed from a previous school where he was investigated for allegedly having sex with an underage student and pulling a gun on her stepfather.
Last week, the assistant principal, Steve Thomas Rooney, 39, allegedly molested a student at the new campus, Markham Middle School. He was arrested and charged with five counts of forcible lewd acts on a child, stemming from allegations that he sexually assaulted the 13-year-old girl March 1 and at least one other occasion.
Los Angeles Unified School District officials declined to comment Wednesday about how Rooney had been reassigned to Markham last fall, saying they are conducting an internal investigation and citing a policy barring them from speaking publicly about cases under those circumstances.
District policy requires officials to conduct their own investigation into employee misconduct regardless of whether the allegations result in criminal charges. Officials would not say Wednesday whether such an inquiry occurred in the earlier case.
Parents, students and district employees said they were outraged that, given his history, Rooney had been allowed to continue working with children.
"The district could have prevented all this," said Elvette Hodge, father of a seventh-grader at Markham and a member of the school site council. "My daughter said to me, 'How can they put teachers like this in school and expect students to do better?' "
Reaction was similar at Fremont High School, where Rooney previously worked as an assistant principal.
"I can't believe he was put in another school," said Jenna Washington, Fremont's magnet coordinator. "It was hard enough for us at Fremont. In South Los Angeles, the district knows a lot of parents are not going to complain. They wouldn't have placed him in a West Los Angeles school or a Valley school. Or they'd have parents out there picketing."
School board member Richard Vladovic, whose district includes Markham, said that he had not been briefed about Rooney's case but that the district's response should not depend solely on whether law enforcement pursues a case.
"Just because police didn't prosecute doesn't mean an employee's actions didn't violate trust or professional standards. We could still take action," he said in an interview Wednesday. Vladovic, who was both a principal and senior district administrator before retiring, added that in such a case, "I would go after a person literally and try to fire him."
