When parents’ complaints and evidence of inappropriate behavior began stacking up against a San Ramon Valley High teacher, he was fired — but only after the school district agreed in writing not to give anyone asking about him a “negative impression.”
Now a pair of former students will receive combined settlements of $7 million from the district, having stepped forward last year to accuse former theater arts teacher Ryan Weible of child sexual abuse.
The two, whose attorneys announced the settlement this week, accused the former teacher of sexually abusing them between 2010 and 2012 on campus grounds after grooming them with jewelry and other gifts, according to their lawsuit filed in the Contra Costa County Superior Court.
While he was employed, Weible had been accused of hugging female students, asking them to sit in his lap, giving them hand massages, spending time alone with them in his office and making sexual comments to them in the classroom, their attorneys said.
Separately, he was also discovered, on one occasion, to be staying overnight in the high school’s theater — and a police investigation turned up both unused and used condoms in his classroom, per a formal reprimand he later received that was obtained by this news organization.
“Despite obvious indicators of inappropriate conduct, the district failed to intervene, investigate, or report its suspicions to the appropriate authorities,” an attorney for the former students, Lauren Cerri, said in a statement Thursday.
San Ramon Valley Unified “expressly denied” any liability or wrongdoing in the $7 million settlements. A district spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The district eventually fired Weible in October 2012, though school administrators agreed at the time to provide nothing more than basic employment details to anyone asking about him in the future, according a separation agreement obtained by this news organization.
“They shall not make any negative comments or give a negative impression about Weible,” the agreement noted. Weible, in turn, agreed not to seek re-employment with the district as part of the agreement.
Child sexual abuse cases involving instructors invariably lead to scrutiny of school districts, where staff and teachers are required by California law to report reasonable suspicions of sexual abuse to authorities within 36 hours.
In 2019, state lawmakers extended the statute of limitations for reporting childhood sex abuse. Victims now have three years to step forward after they first discover that their psychological trauma can be attributed to an earlier instance of abuse.
The new law has cleared the way for a number of fresh complaints and lawsuits accusing instructors of abuse, including in Contra Costa County and San Jose. The latter lawsuit drew its own $10 million settlement.
Weible, who did not respond to an interview request Saturday, continued working as a teacher after leaving San Ramon Valley Unified, including at the Bentley School, a private institution in Oakland, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The former students suing the San Ramon Valley district said Weible sexually abused them on school grounds and in the teacher’s apartment and his car during the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years.
One of the two — both are referred to as Jane Doe in legal documents — alleged in her lawsuit that a sexual encounter with Weible took place, during the same period of time, on a school-sponsored trip to New York City.
“The district prioritized its reputation over student safety and accountability,” one of the plaintiffs said in a statement. “It’s disgusting, abhorrent behavior and cannot be tolerated.”
In addition to complaints by parents that Weible was touching girls inappropriately, he was also formally reprimanded by the district in April 2011 after police discovered him, months earlier, “staying overnight” in the high school’s theater.
Weible explained to the police officers that he had spent occasional nights on campus because of problems at home, according to the reprimand letter he later received from the district. He did not face discipline beyond the letter, which warned him to stop staying on campus overnight.
When officers entered his classroom, they discovered “unused condoms on the desk, condom wrapping on the ground and a used condom in the garbage can.”
Questioned about this later by someone from the district’s human resources department, Weible said he was using the condoms to cover the theater’s microphones, the official wrote in the reprimand letter.
The settlements expected to be paid out by San Ramon Valley Unified amount to nearly $6 million and $1 million, respectively, to the two plaintiffs.
“I know I’m not the first,” one Jane Doe said in a news release, “and unfortunately won’t be the last, but we must remain vigilant and continue to fight for the safety of our students.”
Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at [email protected].