Shock Waves Keep On Hitting Capo District : Education: A biology teacher sues; a trustee is poisoned; a judge threatens to withdraw federal funds because of violations; campaign funding is investigated.

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO —  A biology teacher who does not want to teach evolution sues for $5 million. A school board trustee is poisoned with cyanide. The district attorney starts an investigation into possible campaign violations. A judge threatens to withdraw federal funding over a harassment case.

The controversies just keep on coming in the Capistrano Unified School District.

The district for the last several years has been hit with a seemingly unending stream of problems. Last week the district was rocked again, by reports that it could forfeit $1.5 million in federal money if it does not compensate Ruth Geis, an English teacher at San Clemente High School whose civil rights were violated by the district, according to an administrative law judge’s ruling.

Once known as little more than a school district for quiet beach communities at the southern end of the county, Capistrano Unified has become a swirling hotbed of news that, more often than not, is unbecoming and embarrassing.

“There have been days when I’ve felt like a boxer in the ring,” said James A. Fleming, who took over as superintendent in July. “But there’re three other fighters in the ring. One of the boxers is Peloza, another is Overton. And the other fighter is someone else. I was getting hammered.”

Fleming was referring to the cases of John Peloza, who filed a $5-million lawsuit after the district ordered him to cease teaching creationist theories in his biology class, and Richard K. Overton, who has been charged with the 1988 poisoning death of his wife, Capistrano school board trustee Janet L. Overton. Both cases continue to be front-page news.

Overton’s slaying was one of the first cases to startle the previously sleepy district.

She died on Jan. 24, 1988, with the cause listed as unknown. But the story allegedly behind her death unfolded like a real-life version of “Fatal Attraction,” complete with a scorned spouse and murderous intentions.

Janet Overton was popular and outgoing in the district. But her husband was virtually unknown and withdrawn. Months after his wife’s death, Richard Overton sought her seat on the school board. Lacking charm and charisma, he finished fifth out of seven candidates.

It was not until the following year that the coroner’s office confirmed that Overton had been killed by cyanide poisoning. An investigation quickly began, and unsavory stories about the couple’s sex life emerged, further shocking employees and parents in the district.

The Orange County Grand Jury indicted Richard Overton on Oct. 1 after 22 witnesses testified. One of the most surprising witnesses was Dorothy Boyer, his former wife, who told investigators that he had tried to poison her in 1973.

When the Overton story broke, it became instant grist for water-cooler conversations.

“Every time I think I’ve heard or seen it all in this case, it gets even more bizarre,” said Annette B. Gude, who has been on the district’s board for 11 years. “I’ve never heard so many ridiculous tales in all my life. It’s like, ‘I can top that story.’ ”

While the Overton case continued, the coffee-break mill was further fueled by Peloza, the Capistrano Valley High School teacher whose $5-million federal lawsuit alleges that school officials violated his constitutional rights by forcing him to teach evolution.

Peloza, a “born-again” Christian, asserts that the district has been trying to force him to teach its own religion of “secular humanism.”

Last year, school officials reprimanded Peloza for various grievances, including accusations that he gave Bibles to students after school. The reprimand ordered that Peloza stop instructing that an intelligent creator had put man on earth and to follow the scientific explanation of evolution, which is in state science curricula guidelines.

The case, which is likely to be another headline-grabber when it reaches the courts, could end up to be something like the celebrated 1925 Scopes trial, where a Tennessee high school teacher was convicted for violating a state law that made it illegal to teach evolution.

The latest fiasco for Capistrano is the recent ruling by administrative law judge John F. Cook that district officials harassed and discriminated against Geis for nearly a decade. Unless the district settles the case by implementing a districtwide policy to stop similar discrimination, it could be out $1.5 million in federal funds annually.

According to court findings, district officials, including former Supt. Jerome Thornsley, violated Geis’ civil rights and retaliated against her by taking away plum assignments and denying stipends for after-school work.

What has hit the district so hard is that the Overton, Peloza and Geis cases have cropped up virtually at the same time during the school year, Trustee Crystal Kochendorfer said.

Those controversies, she and other trustees interviewed last week said, are overshadowing the district’s ongoing struggle to cope with a student population that has nearly doubled in the last decade. More than 26,000 students attend the district’s 29 campuses, spread out over 195 square miles--the largest territory of any Orange County school district.

With a settlement in the offing for Geis and with the district likely to find itself submerged in court proceedings over the Peloza case for some time, Fleming has inherited costly battles that are further compounded by the district’s shaky finances.

Still, Fleming said, the controversies will not stop him from pushing the district ahead.

“All of these problems have given new meaning to the term snake-bit ,” he said. “But very frankly, I’m focusing on the future. They have been distractions. But the people in the district are strong enough to put this aside.”

Indeed, the district has survived negative publicity that has surrounded several other high-profile cases in the past few years.

In June, the Orange County Grand Jury found that the district had improperly used public funds and failed to report spending in a bid to gain support for a 1989 property tax measure. The jury, however, did not recommend criminal charges.

Then there were two recent incidents in which teachers were charged with crimes relating to their behavior with students.

Teacher Michael W. Gaskins, a 17-year veteran in the district, pleaded no contest in May to sexual battery in Inyo County and was sentenced to one year in prison. Gaskins, who resigned as a teacher, touched a female student during a science field trip to Last Chance Canyon.

In 1988, teacher William Gekas was sentenced to jail for contributing to the delinquency of a former female student, who was 17 at the time. Gekas was found guilty of five misdemeanor counts for keeping her out past curfew, encouraging her to disobey her mother and giving her champagne at a theater.

“All of these controversies take us away from the tasks at hand, and that’s the unfortunate part,” Trustee Draper said. “I’d like to be able to focus on education. So we try to remind people there are good programs going on, and there are entire strings of good things still happening.”