SAN JOSE (CA)
Mercury News
July 18, 2020
By Daniel Wu
At least 3 teachers accused of sexual misconduct at Presentation High still working in education
Kathryn Leehane wasn’t surprised to discover that former Presentation High teachers, named last week in a bombshell report that exposed years of sexual misconduct and coverups at the San Jose Catholic girls school, were still teaching in the Bay Area.
She had suffered through her own experience of being sexually abused by a teacher at the prominent school when she was a student in the 1990s. And over the weekend, screenshots and tips popped up in her phone. They traced how another teacher, accused in the report of a non-consensual sexual encounter with a former student, had left Presentation for a Daly City public high school and then moved to a San Mateo middle school — all within the last three years. Leehane knew exactly how.
“As long as he had a clean record police-wise, the other schools wouldn’t have known,” she said.
That’s why Leehane and other advocates have been lobbying California lawmakers to pass legislation to make sure career paths like that can’t happen again. But for years, their effort has stalled in the face of opposition from teachers’ unions and civil liberties groups. Leehane hopes the scathing Presentation report can bring a new urgency to the fight.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.