Ron Guinto, 32, has plead not guilty to 27 charges including claims of kidnapping, coercive lascivious acts on a child, sending obscene pictures to a minor over the Internet, persuasive oral sexual intercourse on a minor and coercive homosexuality on a child while working at Making Waves Academy (which is a charter school).
He was let go by Making Waves Academy in November, yet he was immediately rehired in January by the West Contra Costa Unified School District, where he had at one time worked as a substitute teacher. The district admitted they never called Guinto’s references, including Making Waves. Guinto has not been accused of sexual abuse at Mira Vista, but there’s a loophole.
In September, two months prior to Guinto leaving Making Waves Academy, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 449, which requires all superintendents and sanction school heads to tell the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing if a certification holder is released, suspended or put on unpaid authoritative leave for more than 10 days taking after an assertion of offense, including sex ill-use assertions.
The law’s reporting necessities weren’t set up at the time Guinto left Making Waves, and it is not clear how the school took care of his departure. Making Waves’ President Alton Nelson declined to say whether he reported Guinto’s terminating to the credentialing requisition, however Mira Vistas’ Principal Gabriel Chilcott told parents at a PTA meeting that nobody had forewarned the state.
Regardless of the possibility that an examination had been propelled, the state might not have been obliged to uncover any information unless Guinto’s certification was suspended or renounced. In the event that a police examination prompts an arrest, the Department of Justice naturally tells the commission. The commission, then again, can unquestionably suspend a credential just when charges are filed for an austere drug or sex crime, and rapidly deny a credential just if the charges lead to a conviction.
Guinto’s certification was suspended two weeks after charges were filed (on March 20). That was four months after he was terminated by Making Waves and police started investigating. Hence, those four months was plenty of time for Guinto to be employed again and to arrange an overnight field trip with students. But Guinto was arrested before that trip happened. West Contra Costa school board President Charles Ramsey made a statement that soon after Guinto’s arrest, the district had “dodged a bullet” in light of the fact that prosecutors assert he had abused students on those sorts of field trips previously.
