Coach Suspended Over Sexual Allegations

A Ventura High School football coach has been suspended on allegations that he had sex with students, the third coach from that school and the fourth teacher in the district to face such accusations over the last two years.

Bret Taylor, a history teacher at Balboa Middle School and assistant football and junior varsity baseball coach at Ventura High, was suspended without pay July 26 for allegedly having sex with two students and kissing and dating others over a three-year period ending in 1993.

Police said no criminal charges have been filed against Taylor, but Ventura Unified School District officials said they are taking steps to fire him.

In addition, school officials said Tuesday that they have launched an investigation of another male high school teacher, who is suspected of engaging in improper sexual behavior with students.

The allegations against that teacher--who has not yet faced disciplinary action--arose when students recently volunteered information about him to district officials, Supt. Joseph Spirito said.

The investigation of the 28-year-old Taylor stemmed from student interviews last fall and early this year about another Ventura High coach, Dale Hahn.

Hahn, a swim coach and chemistry teacher, was suspended last fall on suspicion of having sex with students. He was never charged criminally. But he resigned in June under an agreement with the school district that he would forfeit his state teaching credential in exchange for a year’s salary.

In 1992, Ventura High head football Coach Harvey Kochel was forced to resign and later was convicted of having sex with a 15-year-old student.

And Bryan Bowman, a special education teacher at E.P. Foster School in Ventura, was suspended last fall on allegations that he fondled and engaged in other improper behavior with his students.

Ventura school board President Diane Harriman said Tuesday that students are sometimes vulnerable to sexual advances by teachers because they tend to idolize them.

“Particularly coaches are put in this kind of idolized role,” Harriman said. “I can’t blame the girls. My biggest concern is inappropriate actions by people in a position of trust. It’s too bad our kids are so naive, but it’s too bad there are people that take advantage of it.”

Taylor began working in the Ventura district in 1989 and was a substitute teacher until 1991.

He was hired in fall 1991 to teach world civilization and boys’ physical education at Cabrillo Middle School. In fall 1992, he moved to Balboa where he taught U.S. history, English and developmental reading.

While teaching at Balboa, Taylor also coached football and baseball at Ventura High.

In charges officials filed against Taylor last month with a Los Angeles administrative law judge, the district claims Taylor admitted that while he was a substitute teacher he kissed a Ventura High student on at least two occasions.

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Taylor also admitted kissing another Ventura High student during the 1990-91 school year while she was at his home working on a history report, according to the charges.

The district also alleges that students have told school officials two girls confided to classmates that they had sex with Taylor.

Ventura police Sgt. Bob Anderson said Tuesday that detectives interviewed one of the girls named by the other students, and she refused to cooperate with officers.

“She didn’t want to be involved,” Anderson said. “She wanted this issue to go away.”

Taylor’s administrative hearing is set for Sept. 12--five days after the start of the fall semester--at the school district headquarters in Ventura.