A gym teacher at North Whidbey Middle School is on indefinite administrative leave after police arrested him for allegedly assaulting a 12-year-old girl during class, according to the Oak Harbor Police.

The parents of the student are also outraged at the way the school administration handled the case, especially in light of past complaints against the teacher.

“They were just hoping to sweep it under the rug with the rest,” said Andrea Bridges, mother of the victim.

Det. Teri Gardner said she arrested and cited 52-year-old James Pruss Feb. 21 on suspicion of assault in the fourth degree with sexual motivation. She referred the case to the city attorney for a charging decision.

Gardner said she is also looking into a complaint that Pruss inappropriately touched another student last September. In fact, she asks that anyone with information about these or other incidents involving Pruss to call her at 297-4623.

According to Gardner’s report, Pruss is accused of grabbing the girl’s breast during basketball practice in seventh-grade gym class Feb. 7. Two other students, who weren’t well-known to the victim, witnessed the assault and were concerned enough to ask the girl if she was OK, the report states.

In a statement to school officials, Pruss wrote that the contact was an accident.

“There was no time to swerve, so we both spontaneously did what was necessary to avoid a more serious collision,” he wrote. “During a basketball game this would be termed ‘incidental contact.’”

Pruss could not be reached for comment this week because he was out of the state, according to a family member.

Bridges said she feels the harm done to her daughter by the alleged assault was aggravated by the response from school officials. The school never reported the incident to the police and Pruss continued teaching until the day police went to the school and arrested him.

When asked if the school district should have alerted police, Det. Gardner pointed to a state law that requires employees at schools and other public agencies to report when they have “reasonable cause to believe that a child has suffered abuse.”

Rick Schulte, superintendent of schools, said officials simply didn’t have “sufficient cause” to report the incident to police.

“The police had different

information than we had,” he said, referring to the fact that police found cause to arrest Pruss. Schulte added that he couldn’t get into specifics of the ongoing investigation.

Pruss did not write his statement on the incident until Feb. 16, the day after police initiated contact with the school.

The principal and vice principal admitted to the police that they hadn’t questioned the victim and the witness in depth, Gardner wrote.

The school district did, however, have student incident reports from the victim and two witnesses which clearly state the allegation against Pruss. They were written on the day of the incident.

“He put his hand up and squeezed my right breast,” the alleged victim wrote.

While Schulte said he would never discourage a student or parent from making a report to police, Andrea Bridges said she got a different message.

Bridges said Principal Dale Leach told her to keep the incident confidential while the investigation was going on.

“He used the word ‘confidential’ several times,” she said.

Bridges feels there wasn’t even an investigation by the school at all, just a sweep under the rug. She said they took her daughter out of the PE class and put her into the school library all by herself. The girl felt she was being punished for speaking up against a teacher.

The library was supposed to be a very short-term solution — the parents thought — but after a week Bridges got fed up and went to the police. She said police officers were shocked that the school district hadn’t reported the incident.

Bridges claimed school officials promised to contact her about the investigation, but never did. To top it all off, the school kept calling the parents to report that their daughter was absent from gym class.

Schulte said the school’s investigation was delayed by the detective.

“The police asked us to stop the investigation on our part,” he said. “They didn’t want our investigation to contaminate theirs.”

But the police didn’t get involved until eight days after the incident.

Schulte said the school district has now restarted the internal investigation into Pruss.

Bridges feels that it’s too little, too late. Through a public-records request, she discovered other complaints that students have made against Pruss over the last three years. The complaints range from those of a sexual nature to objections about the way he runs his class — like having to run for lengthy periods.

On two occasions students have complained about Pruss touching them on the butt. There are also complaints about the teacher touching a girl near the bra strap, pushing a student from behind, looking at girls’ chests, looking at boys in the locker room, or even licking his lips in a way that made a student uncomfortable.

On at least one occasion, students complained that Pruss teased them by alluding that they were gay.

School officials told the police that student allegations against Pruss were “investigated but not proven,” Gardner wrote.

Before he was a gym teacher, Pruss was the high school choir teacher. He was transferred to the middle school to become a PE instructor because of decreased enrollment in the high school program.

In 2003, Pruss’ teaching certificate was temporarily suspended. Schulte said Pruss inappropriately raised and diverted choir and booster club money.

Schulte said he was aware of many of the allegations against Pruss, but he emphasized that nothing was ever proven and nothing was ever as serious as the current allegation.

In general terms, Schulte said teachers are well protected from complaints and discipline.

“It’s way too hard to fire a teacher,” Schulte said.

Reach reporter Jessie Stensland at jstensland@whidbeynewstimes.com or call 675-6611.