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The school system lobbied last week against giving unemployment benefits to suspended Kemp Mill Elementary School teacher Dan Picca, saying he did everything from massaging students to asking them to remove their shirts and rewarding them with candy .

During the unemployment hearing, Montgomery County Public Schools Investigation Specialist Miles Alban discussed the claims against Picca. Alban argued that repeated insubordination and misconduct on Picca's part, not sexual abuse, are grounds for his termination and elimination of unemployment benefits.

"It's been an ongoing saga for at least 15 years," Alban told the hearing examiner while discussing allegations that Picca massaged one of his students after school April 12. "... I guess [April 12] would best be described as the straw that broke the camel's back."

Picca, formerly a fourth-grade math teacher at Kemp Mill, said he was in his classroom with a few students April 12 waiting for the final buses to be called for boarding. Picca said one of his students fell into a desk, and so he checked the student's shoulder for injuries or signs of separation. Another teacher walked past the classroom and saw Picca touching the student and reported it to the school's principal, Floyd Starnes.

The student drafted a statement saying he received massages from Picca, but that student and his parents have since said Starnes encouraged him to write the letter to include words like "massage." Alban said Starnes was not alone in the room while the statement was drafted; he alleges that there was a school counselor present, who said Starnes did not coerce the student into writing a false statement.

The student's parents, Todd and Hedy Ross, have launched a public campaign called "Save KMES" to reinstate Picca as a teacher and remove Starnes from the school's administration. They have said their son was alone with Starnes while drafting the statement. The Rosses also have publicized complaints filed by several other Kemp Mill teachers who say Starnes has sexually harassed staff members and targeted them for revenge if they threatened to speak up.

Alban provided the hearing examiner with three more statements from Picca's former students who said they regularly received massages from their teacher during lunch and after school. One student said he received 35 massages over the course of the school year, and another said he received massages three or four times a week, adding, "Mr. Picca says he's proud of me."

Picca has been accused of inappropriately touching children before, though those investigations were dropped. A 1995 police investigation from one of the former incidents that was presented at the hearing said Picca would request that students sit on his lap, and one student told police Picca had an erection every time.

One of the conditions of Picca continuing to teach in Montgomery County schools after that investigation was that he sign a statement promising, among other things, he would not touch a child except in emergency situations and would not have students alone in his classroom during lunch or after school.

It is on these grounds that Alban said the school system should fire Picca and remove his unemployment benefits.

But Picca said he is fully aware of the conditions he agreed to. Picca told the hearing examiner he viewed April 12 as an emergency situation. He tried buzzing the office for assistance when the student fell, but there was no answer, and he knew the nurse had already left for the day, he said. Not wanting to send an injured child home on the bus, he said he felt it was his responsibility to check the child's shoulder for injury.

"I am professionally obligated, when a child is injured, to provide medical assistance," he said.

Hedy Ross, the parent of the child, said Picca immediately called her and alerted her that her son had fallen. She said her son plays a lot of sports and is constantly bumping into things.

"I'm fully convinced that nothing happened between Mr. Picca and my son," she said.

In a phone interview Tuesday, Picca said the school system should not be using allegations from 15 years ago as a part of their argument against him. He said if Superintendant Jerry Weast had any concerns, he would have been out of a job years ago.

"If he had a scintilla of concern about my character or anything in my past, he would not have sent me back to the classroom," he said.

Hearing officer Cathy Applefield said Picca could expect to hear the results of her investigation in roughly a month. In the meantime, the Board of Education is holding a private meeting this week to discuss Picca's possible termination.

jderbedrosian@gazette.net