Superintendent Quits, Enters No-Contest Plea

The superintendent of the Eastside Union School District, arrested Aug. 28 for allegedly masturbating in a Lancaster park restroom, has resigned and pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of misdemeanor disturbing the peace, officials said Tuesday.

Robert Wakeling, 51, of Lancaster, who had held the $70,000-a-year job since 1988, was sentenced Monday to three years probation and fined $1,090 by Antelope Municipal Judge Frank Jackson under terms of a plea bargain. Originally, Wakeling had faced a misdemeanor lewd conduct charge.

Wakeling was arrested by an undercover sheriff’s vice deputy at Jane Reynolds Park.

A lewd conduct conviction would have forced Wakeling to register as a sex offender and would have cost him his state teaching and administrator’s credentials, officials said. A charge of disturbing the peace will not affect his credentials, state education officials said.

The lesser charge does not require him to register as a sex offender and is a standard plea arrangement for first-time offenders in lewd conduct incidents not involving children, prosecutors said.

Wakeling’s resignation, which officials said was not part of the plea bargain, was effective Sept. 23 and accepted Monday night by the school board of the three-school, 1,700-student district in east Lancaster. Wakeling had been on paid leave in the weeks after his arrest and later was placed on unpaid leave.