With a nod to the national “#MeToo movement,” Tamalpais High School teacher Eva Rieder has gone public with allegations that male students have sexually harassed her more than a dozen times with physical touching and obscene emails, letters and phone calls — and that school administrators and staff failed to respond to her reports or take any action to stop it.

“It’s time my story is told,” Rieder, a math teacher at the Mill Valley high school for 15 years, said during the public comment portion of the Feb. 6 Tamalpais Union High School District board of trustees’ meeting at Redwood High School in Larkspur. “It’s time I say #MeToo.”

The latter was a reference to the recent national wave of incidents in which sexual harassment victims in a variety of arenas — from government, to business, law enforcement, athletics, fashion, entertainment, the military and literature, among others — are ending their silence and isolation by speaking out about their experiences and calling out their alleged predators and harassers.

Rieder, who said she had been nervous about speaking up before now due to fears of retaliation, said the similar testimony at the previous board meeting Jan. 23 by Redwood High School math teacher Jessica Crabtree convinced her it was time to come forward.

“I want to see a change,” she said Monday. “I want to see our kids taken care of — I want to see our kids protected and safe.” She said she felt the district must face the issue head-on.

“It’s 2018, and this is a thing,” she said. “The kids know what it is — it’s negligent of us to not pay attention to this.”

TAM HIGH > MORE COVERAGE

School board President Leslie Lundgren said Monday she was “very concerned by both Ms. Crabtree’s and Ms. Rieder’s allegations — I am aware the district leadership is investigating the issue.” She declined further comment.

Later Monday, Tam High Principal J.C. Farr issued the following statement in a telephone interview:

“As a result of the complaints recently made at board meetings, the district retained the services of an attorney who specializes in workplace investigations to look into the complaint and review the district’s protocols for responding. At the conclusion of the investigation, the investigator will prepare a report with findings and recommendations. We must wait for the investigator’s report before making any conclusions.

“The district also appointed a second Title IX officer, Tara Taupier, assistant superintendent of educational services, who, along with Wes Cedros, the senior director of student services, are responsible for receiving and responding to complaints,” Farr added in the prepared statement. “The district’s anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies are available on the district’s website under board of trustees.

“Please know that the district takes complaints of harassment and sexual misconduct very seriously and responds expeditiously to complaints by investigating and taking any necessary corrective action,” Farr said. “Due to privacy concerns, the district cannot comment further.”

Lars Christensen, assistant superintendent for human resources, emailed an identical message to the Independent Journal later on Monday.

Since her public statements last week, both her teacher colleagues and school students have expressed support, Rieder said.

“They’re saying that they’re glad the awareness was raised,” she said. “My whole thing is that it’s less about what’s happening to me, than about let’s create a curriculum of how to act in the real world, how to know when it’s happening to you, how to report it, stop it, not do it — and how to speak your truth, if this is happening to you.”

‘Graphic’ allegations

In her statement to the board Feb. 6, Rieder outlined some of the allegations in general terms. Most of the actual words or details were “so graphic that they are unfit for this public audience, but I can provide them if needed,” she told the board members.

“I have been slandered by a student spreading a rumor that I made a drunken sexual advance to him at a party,” she said, reading from a prepared statement.

“I have been touched more than once by a student who also argues it’s OK to describe his masturbatory habits in the classroom,” she said.

“I received profane phone calls and emails to my work and personal addresses,” she said. “Some were identified as coming from the school IP (computer network) address during school hours.”

She said those were only a few of the incidents of harassment that she and others have experienced.

“I, like other women in this district, have been sexually harassed, stalked, bullied, threatened and defamed by my students,” she said.

Rieder added that “trauma” from the repeated incidents has triggered medical conditions and “has caused me to take a personal leave next year.” She said Monday she will still be teaching, but on a part-time schedule.

Rieder said in the meeting that the issue was not just the students’ actions but the lack of response from the administration.

She said she first approached staff in 2014 about a sexual harassment incident involving a student. Some efforts were made to educate the school community at the time, but no permanent change resulted, she said.

Rieder said at the board meeting that she realized, after hearing Crabtree’s testimony, that it was a “district-wide negligence problem.”

“Teachers have an annual training,” she said Monday. “Why not students, too?”

She told the board that efforts need to be made to face the issue, because kids see it every day on social media.

“Inaction is an action,” she said. “How long will this escalate before the board takes real action?”

Tam High social studies teacher Luc Chamberlain, who also spoke Feb. 6 to the board, said he was “horrified” by the prevalence of a “misogynistic” attitude among the male students at the school.

“It is not at all surprising to me that male students feel they have the power to annex the animus in our society to harass female teachers — or anyone else,” he said. “While I think we do a pretty good job of dealing with sexual harassment against students, I think we do a pretty poor job of dealing with sexual harassment against others.”

He said he also supported some kind of training for students.

Marin Superintendent of Schools Mary Jane Burke said Monday she had no word on the situation, and referred all questions to the district.

Cory DeMars, president of the Tamalpais Federation of Teachers, could not be reached for comment.