SAN JOSE — Two teachers were put on forced leave Friday at a Catholic girls high school that was already reeling from a high-profile claim that school officials kept a teacher on staff after he molested two students in 1990.
The Presentation High School teachers were placed on paid administrative leave after two students and a former student came forward earlier in the week with information regarding two separate, more recent situations — at least one of which was serious enough to warrant a call to police.
The statements to the school from the students and former student came three weeks after the Washington Post published an essay by Presentation High graduate Kathryn Leehane describing her frustration after she reported to school officials and police that a teacher had sexually molested her and another female student in 1990. The teacher, who was not named, remained at the school but has since died.
“Eventually, I lost hope for justice,” Leehane wrote.
The cases that prompted the private, $20,000-per-year school to place the teachers on leave appear unrelated to the essay, other than that they were brought to light after it was published.
In a letter to parents on Friday, Presentation Principal Mary Miller revealed few details about the cases.
Miller said the case the school reported to police centers on an alleged incident between a current teacher and a former student.
“An anonymous contact was received this week from a former student who made allegations against a current teacher from an incident from more than five years ago,” Miller wrote. “The allegation involves an instance that is alleged to have occurred with the teacher and the student after she had graduated. We reported this allegation to police and the appropriate authorities.”
A spokesperson for the San Jose Police Department could not be reached for comment on Saturday.
In the other case, an interview with a student earlier in the week about an incident that occurred 14 months ago raised new questions that need to be investigated further, Miller said in the letter.
“This new story contradicted some of the details that had been repeatedly and consistently reported by the two parties involved,” Miller wrote.
The case involves a teacher who reportedly was alone with a student, Presentation spokeswoman Samantha LoCurto said Thursday. Information about the case came to the school’s attention earlier in the week, secondhand from two students, said LoCurto, who added that no misconduct was alleged.
“We would like to say more, but if we did we could bias the investigation and the outcome,” LoCurto said. “That is why we are unable to respond to exact details of the matter.”
The school typically doesn’t notify parents when teachers are placed on leave, Miller said in the letter.
“Under most circumstances, we would not inform the PHS community about such actions as they are personnel matters,” she wrote. “However, we want you to know the school is taking decisive action when informed of allegations to protect students.”
Miller also asked parents not to rush to judgment.
“These cases are being thoroughly investigated by the appropriate authorities and we will not be able to share the conclusions of these investigations because of privacy laws,” she wrote, “but we want you to know what is occurring to ensure rumors and false information do not make their way through the school community.”
LoCurto said the school would “report back to our parent community when the investigation is complete, with as much information as we are able to.”
In response to Leehane’s essay, Presentation graduates circulated an online petition calling for an independent investigation and a public apology. They also want officials who were told about the allegations but allegedly did not take appropriate action to face “consequences.” That apparently includes Miller, head of the school since 1993, and former principal Marian Stuckey.
“We are outraged by the apparent lack of response by the Presentation administration once charges of abuse were reported to Marian Stuckey and Mary Miller beginning in 1990,” states the petition, which had more than 2,000 signatures as of Saturday night.
The essay and the action against two teachers have led to unsubstantiated rumors and attacks against the school on social media, said parent Terry Downing-Gallo, a class of 1983 alumna and parent of one Presentation graduate and one current student.
“Trashing 50 years of a fabulous institution that has nurtured and sent so many women on to success, I think it’s wrong,” said Downing-Gallo, 52, of San Jose. “If you took a look at any high school in the nation over 30 years or 50 years there’s going to be an incident in every damn high school. There are creeps out there.”
Supporters of Presentation, which opened in 1962, worry that the negative chatter could affect donations that fund the school and allow it to offer scholarships to a quarter of the student body, Downing-Gallo said.
Her daughter, Brianna Gallo, a junior at the school, said she found the claims in Leehane’s essay shocking and the removal of the two teachers confusing.
“Presentation to me in my eyes is such a safe place,” she said. “I still don’t doubt the school is a very safe place.”
Another alumna, Kris Kelly of San Jose, lamented the predicament of school officials, who are bound by privacy laws from releasing detailed information about how the school responded to the 1990 molestation allegations. “The school can’t come forward and say anything about their side of the story,” said Kelly, also a member of the class of 1983.
Both Downing-Gallo and Kelly expressed confidence in Principal Miller. “She is as a person the fiercest defender of girls that I could ever think of — and probably the last person that anyone knows who would sweep anything like this under the rug,” Kelly said.
Another student, senior Megan Munce, wrote on Medium, an online magazine, that she was troubled by allegations about abuse at the school, but was dismayed by some of the response.
“In a day, whispers turned a single accusation of assault into rumors that there had been hundreds of reports,” Munce wrote Friday.