Just as the San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District sorted out one inappropriate-behavior situation, another materialized.
Trustees had voted to let teacher Eric Kahl resign, at their Sept. 14, 2021, board meeting, after learning he’d subjected female students to unwelcome sexual advances (in exchange, Kahl agreed not to sue).
Then, the very next day, an anonymous minor, referred to as Jane Doe, filed a lawsuit in Santa Cruz County Superior Court against the District, Jennifer Lahey (the former principal of San Lorenzo Valley Elementary School) and a bus driver named Greg Devlin, saying he’d groomed and then sexually assaulted her between 2016 and 2018.
It’s just one of several serious controversies the District has found itself connected to in recent years:
- Former assistant superintendent of instruction, Ned Hearn, is preparing to go to trial in Solano County over accusations he repeatedly sexually abused a 16-year-old student, back when he used to live there.
- Former SLV football coach Mark Christensen now faces a misdemeanor indecent exposure charge in Santa Cruz County Superior Court (prosecutors say the incident occurred Sept. 21, 2023), for which he was arraigned Jan. 3; he declined to comment, through his lawyer, Zach D. Schwarzbach.
- In 2022, SLVUSD ousted science teacher William Winkler, after it was determined he’d failed to maintain appropriate boundaries with multiple students (though the rape allegations against him weren’t substantiated by District investigators).
- Middle and high school teacher Michael Henderson pleaded guilty, in 2021, to abusing a 10-year-old girl during private after-school lessons, at a building across from the tri-campus (to avoid having to register as a sex offender).
SLVUSD Superintendent Chris Schiermeyer says the accusations against Christensen only recently came to light.
“Mark is currently not an active employee as football season is over,” Schiermeyer said, adding the information reported so far relates to an adult female in Live Oak. “All coaches are temporary ‘at-will’ employees. The Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Office has informed us that the incident does not involve anything related to the District and no further information regarding the case was provided to us.”
Payout over a bus driver
Jane Doe, the San Lorenzo Valley Elementary student who accused Devlin, said it was in May or June 2017, when she was in fourth grade, that the problems started.
“DEVLIN paid extra attention to Plaintiff and would ‘make fun’ of her for various things, causing her to have a ‘panicky feeling’ before getting on the bus,” the First Amended Complaint reads, adding the girl was so upset by these comments that she’d be close to tears, “and then he would be extra nice to her to calm her down.”
The girl would show up in sweats and a hoodie, but the driver would tell her to try out a much different wardrobe: dress, skirt, shorts, tank top, the filing states.
By the time the next school year arrived, this escalated to touching, according to the lawsuit.
“On at least two occasions, DEVLIN grabbed Plaintiff’s arm to keep her from exiting the bus,” the complaint reads. “Plaintiff would anxiously make attempts to sprint off the bus quickly to avoid being touched.”
The bus driver would give out stickers to kids, and on two occasions, when the girl went to put a sticker on her forehead, Devlin instead pressed it onto her chest and ran his hand down along her body, per the complaint.
There were at least four times, lawyers for Jane Doe said, where, in her haste to exit the bus, the girl dropped her jacket and Devlin picked it up and put it over her shoulders, using this as an opportunity to touch her breasts and her thighs.
Another time, when the girl dropped her jacket, the man “grabbed Plaintiff’s hand and stared into her eyes,” the complaint states.
In September 2017, while on the bus, the girl says she noticed Devlin looking at her through the rear-view mirror while fondling himself for about 10 minutes.
“As she was leaving the bus, DEVLIN told Plaintiff that she had a string on her pants near her crotch area that he was going to remove for her,” the court document states, adding that Jane Doe said she would deal with it herself while attempting to move the man’s hand away. “DEVLIN persisted as he ostensibly ‘pulled the string off’ of Plaintiff’s pants and, in doing so, he touched Plaintiff’s vagina through her clothes and pressed his knuckle into her genitals while smiling at her in a ‘really creepy’ manner.”
According to the lawsuit, the girl immediately asked her mother for the definition of the word “pervert.” The mom gave an answer, and the girl retorted, “Then [DEVLIN] is a pervert,” according to the complaint.
Upon hearing about the incident, the mom called 911 and spoke with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, who put the family in touch with a woman who specialized in discussing sensitive matters with children, the court papers say.
A Sheriff’s Office representative told school administrators about the case at the time, lawyers for the girl say.
A spokesperson for the law enforcement agency declined to verify they reached out to SLVUSD administrators at this point, but confirmed it investigated the incident and sent the case off to the District Attorney’s Office for review.
The DA’s Office told the Press Banner, on Jan. 4, it declined to file charges.
Jane Doe was so distraught that she was unable to return to school, would suffer frequent panic attacks and nightmares and could barely get out of bed, the lawsuit states.
“Given the fact that DEVLIN picked Plaintiff up and dropped her off every school day at her home and therefore knew where she lived, Plaintiff had valid and real fears that DEVLIN would break into her home to cause additional harm to Plaintiff or another family member,” the lawsuit reads. “These fears were even more well-founded once Plaintiff’s mother discovered the complaints of other parents at DEVLIN’s former place of employment that indicated he had a propensity toward anger and violence.”
The girl’s lawyers said that when she tried returning to school about a month later, SLVE’s principal, Lahey, “informed Plaintiff and her mother that it was important Plaintiff speak to no one about what happened.”
The school investigated and issued a press release that a bus driver had been accused of inappropriate touching, according to the complaint, which adds the girl’s anxiety only got worse as Devlin continued to drive children to school, and she began to exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Jane Doe was “forcibly interrogated” by SLVE personnel—questioned about the assault and told she must talk and couldn’t call her mom, the lawsuit claims.
“The DISTRICT’s investigation resulted in a decision that DEVLIN had committed no wrongdoing,” the First Amended Complaint states. “Throughout the investigation, the DISTRICT defamed JANE DOE and told other parents that she had a habit of making false accusations.”
The District was accused of being negligent, intentionally inflicting emotional distress and sexual harassment. Devlin said nothing untoward had happened.
In the end, SLVUSD agreed to settle the case by writing a check for $5,000 to cover the girl’s medical expenses. It did not have to admit guilt or pay the plaintiff’s legal fees.
However, it still dragged on for months, as the District sent the payment to the wrong address.
The civil matter was finally closed, with prejudice, on Jan. 18, 2023.
Schiermeyer, who was not superintendent at the time of the initial report, said the District didn’t uncover any evidence to back up the girl’s claims.
“During the investigations, the bus driver was not driving students, however, once the investigations were completed and determined to be unsubstantiated, the bus driver returned as a school bus driver,” he said, adding Devlin moved out of the region in 2021.
The decision to settle—and for how much—was made by SLVUSD’s insurance provider and its legal team, Schiermeyer said.
Case against Hearn comes into focus
It’s a case that—at every turn—has tested a #metoo-era law that allowed sexual assault victims to bring court cases against public entities dating to before the regular statute of limitations.
Melissa Chowning, who opted not to remain anonymous, says she had a sexual relationship, at 16, with a substitute teacher who was her swim coach, at Dixon High School, located about 65 miles east of San Francisco.
Thanks to a law called AB 218 signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, Chowning was able to file a complaint dating back to the mid-90s, when she claims the coach gave her a pager as a gift.
Chowning’s counsel declined to comment for this story.
As Hearn’s legal team prepares for an estimated 10-day trial, starting July 9—after successfully pushing his accuser to agree to undergo a psychological evaluation—details of what will be argued have begun to emerge.
That’s because Dixon Unified School District has been doing everything in its power to try to shift the potential liability toward the City of Dixon, while maintaining its support for Hearn.
DUSD sought to depose Hearn (in a hearing where he couldn’t plead the Fifth) to prove it was unaware of the conduct in question and that anything inappropriate that did occur happened outside the school and sanctioned extracurricular activities.
However, Solano County Superior Court judge Christine Carringer didn’t allow this, noting DUSD’s proposed questions could result in Hearn incriminating himself.
“While (an October 2017 police report) contains a relevant statement from Plaintiff’s high school friend, that statement does not clearly and convincingly corroborate allegations of rape by force or duress,” said Carringer, adding that “there is a possibility that Hearn could still face prosecution…in the event a new report with clear and convincing corroborating evidence of a listed offense is made.”
And so, on July 28, it released a tranche of documents that included sections of previously-held depositions that provide the clearest picture to-date of what Chowning says occurred.
In her July 26, 2022, deposition, Chowning tells of how Hearn was a well-liked substitute science teacher who would sometimes give her rides to the nearby pool for swim practice. She described suggestive remarks, escalating to physical touching, including massages, when other adults weren’t around.
“I would say it was more flirtation in my freshman year,” she said, adding that he began touching her buttocks (supposedly by accident) by her sophomore year.
Chowning said she was scared to tell anyone about what was happening because Hearn was held in such high regard.
“He was the head coach of the Dixon Dolphins when I was the assistant coach,” she said. “If…you come out and you say something against somebody that, you know is the jovial teacher, young teacher that everybody likes, what is that going to mean for me?… Would I not be able to coach anymore? Would I not be able to swim the races I wanted to swim anymore?”
Chowning recalled one time he touched her in the pool office, where swimmers would put their valuables for safe-keeping.
“I remember standing up against the table and looking out the window, and he did it as he walked by,” she said. “I turned to look as he was walking out of the room, and he winked at me.”
She said she liked the attention of getting to ride with the coach to the pool when her own vehicle wasn’t working properly.
“‘Hop in, I’ll take you over to swim,’” she remembers Hearn telling her. “There was an element of, this person is going to give me a ride…Everybody thought he…acted like one of the kids at the school. So, you know…in my head, like…there is somebody that’s paying attention to me. There’s somebody that wants to give me a ride…But also, there was certainly an element of flattery, as well.”
Plus, she said, Hearn was someone her mom and stepdad knew—as a bartender at a restaurant in a neighboring town.
She was a junior the first time they had sex, she testified. In the deposition she recalled Hearn had invited her over to his home to discuss her career path and her swimming—and for a massage.
Chowning says she doesn’t remember telling anyone about what happened that day with Hearn, at the time.
“I felt disgusting, but also conflicted,” she said. “Like I said earlier, there’s a part of you when you are that—when you’re, you know, 16 years old—that does feel flattery that somebody is giving you.”
She was asked if she told Hearn she loved him.
“Yeah,” she answered. “I said it back.”
Chowning estimates she would go on to visit Hearn at his house about 15 times over a period of 4-5 months—about once or twice a week—though she says they didn’t have sex every single time.
“He would make me food when I would go over,” she said, recalling bagels and soup.
She says she never turned Hearn down for sex when he asked, and remembers him always wearing a condom. She says, in Dixon, they only had sex at Hearn’s home or in his car, though she says he would kiss her at the pool when he could get away with it.
She estimates they had some type of sexual contact around 15 times at his home and 5-8 times in his car, and at least once on an out-of-town trip.
“Back then I felt like I was keeping a secret,” she said. “He told me that if I ever told anybody, he would probably lose his job, and that it would probably be really hard for me to keep swimming. And he would probably go to jail. And it wouldn’t be good for anybody, basically.”
Chowning testified that she felt trapped, particularly since it didn’t appear anyone around her was catching on to what was happening.
She says she also felt conflicted, “—like there’s something about you that is special because this person wants to do these things with you. But at the same time, you feel like there’s something wrong with you because this person wants to do these things with you.”
And Chowning says she worried about her own reputation.
“Swimming was everything to me when I was in high school,” she said. “It was the thing that I was good at. It was the thing that I got attention for. It was the thing, and the activity, that when I was doing it, I felt like I knew what I was doing.”
That certainty was missing from other areas of her life, she stated.
“For me, swimming represented a lot of what made me whole and what made me happy,” she said, adding Hearn was the person who was the key to that stability. “So, I did not know what to do with the fact that the person who carried that role in my life was telling me that he loved me, and that I couldn’t tell anybody. And that if I told anybody, he would get in trouble and that I would get in trouble and people would think terrible things about me, and everyone would call you a slut. And you probably wouldn’t be able to coach anymore because people wouldn’t want a slut, you know, coaching all of the kids at the pool.”
Chowning says they also engaged in sexual activity in the bathroom of a hotel room on a trip to Southern California. She says she’d billed it to her parents as an opportunity to check out potential colleges, but in reality, it turned out to be a trip to watch Hearn compete in a swim meet.
According to Chowning, Hearn would write her love notes (which she says she later disposed of) in which he professed his desire to marry her when she graduated. She says he even bought her a pager—a portable device used in pre-cell phone days for pinging people to request a callback.
“He told me that he wanted to be able to get ahold of me without having to call my house and not wanting my parents to hear that he was calling me,” she said. “So, he said, ‘I can page you, and that’s when you know I want you to come over.’”
Chowning says she eventually threw the pager away.
Corroborating witness
When she sat for her deposition Aug. 29, 2022, Chowning’s high school best friend Erin McNerney Maillo recalled some events clearly, but was foggy on other details. In contrast with her, Chowning wasn’t the best student, though she wasn’t terrible either, Maillo remembered.
“I know that she was a very, very, very, very good swimmer,” she said. “They would announce things on, you know, the high school announcements in the morning, like—Melissa won this, and she won that. She was always winning.”
Maillo said it wasn’t uncommon to see Hearn touch the swimmers at the pool, putting his hand on their back or shoulder.
“That’s what he would do—I mean often,” she said. “I don’t think that specifically was only towards Melissa.”
However, what she witnessed was never extremely inappropriate, she stated.
“He was a very touchy kind of a coach,” she said. “With Melissa, they had a very, very, very close relationship, because he was the head swim coach and she was the top swimmer, you know. And it was over a period of many, many years that he was her swim coach and so they had a very trusting relationship.”
Maillo said it was sometime during junior and senior year that Chowning shared about her relationship with Hearn—and that they’d had sex.
“The memory that I have is much more of my reaction—I feel bad about that—it is much more of my judgment that I had towards that situation,” she said. “I just remember her telling me that and…me feeling just very shocked.”
Over time, rumors began to circulate about what might be going on between Hearn and Chowning, she said, adding only she and her younger sister knew the truth.
“We would drive from Dixon to Davis and drop her off at his apartment,” she said, estimating it would be about an hour or two before she’d return to pick her friend up. “I tried to cut myself off from that relationship, and I think I tried, as well, to not think about it that much.”
Maillo testified that she couldn’t say for sure how long the relationship lasted.
In the deposition, Maillo even says she saw Hearn and Chowning hugging and kissing each other while on a trip through Santa Cruz to visit colleges.
In at least one case, Chowning and Hearn stayed in a room together while she slept in another room, Maillo testified, though she wasn’t sure that was the case in Santa Cruz; and she couldn’t say if this was during spring break or summer.
A tearful ending
Over the months, Hearn was becoming more and more careless with his remarks and the way he would touch her in public, meaning it was getting harder and harder to keep it all a secret, Chowning said in her deposition.
“I called him at one point and said, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’” she recalled. “I said, ‘I don’t know how to keep doing this. It’s too much. I can’t keep keeping this secret. I don’t want any of this anymore.’”
Chowning recounted that he burst into tears on the other end of the phone.
“He cried and said, ‘I love you. And I’ll wait for you…I don’t want this to end,’” she testified. “I remember just feeling so claustrophobic, is the best way to describe it…And then feeling that pull of somebody who wants you to be something for them, who wants you to do certain things and continue to meet those needs for them.”
She never returned to Hearn’s home, she said, though she recalled him trying to win her back.
A follow-up question suggests the strategy the defense will use in the upcoming trial—looking for inconsistencies in Chowning’s narrative.
While Hearn denies all the accusations against him and employed his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself for the majority of questions during his deposition, he did mention one thing that might help his case.
“When Mr. Hearn was deposed, he said that sometime after you got out of high school, he was in Santa Cruz working as a lifeguard, and you came up and talked to him. Do you recall that at all?” Chowning was asked.
“No,” she replied.
Schiermeyer says this case doesn’t have anything to do with SLVUSD, and said Hearn voluntarily resigned on June 8, 2022.
“As with any school district, SLVUSD has high expectations in regards to our staff and their interactions with students,” he said, adding the District conducts annual training on abuse reporting requirements and maintaining professional boundaries, which is increasingly relevant “in this age of social media.”
Last month, a concerned parent of a Bay View Elementary student reached out to administrators of the Santa Cruz school, after learning Hearn was volunteering there.
While Santa Cruz City Schools Superintendent Kris Munro told community members, in a Dec. 21 message, her district treats “every complaint—even implication—of misconduct as plausible and urgent,” Bay View Principal Renee Golder, who is also Santa Cruz’s vice mayor, told the parent its policies wouldn’t restrict Hearn’s access to the campus prior to a conviction.
