Former local teacher charged with sex crimes in Orange County
BY JORGE BARRIENTOS, Californian staff writer jbarrientos@bakersfield.com
An Orange County teacher who taught in Bakersfield high schools for nearly two decades was recently charged with having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student down south, police said.
Scott Adrian Peterson -- who taught at Arvin and Ridgeview high schools -- is scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 7 on eight felony counts including unlawful sexual intercourse, sexual penetration by a foreign object and oral copulation of a person younger than 18, Orange County Superior Court records show.
He was released following his arrest on $100,000 bail, records show.
Peterson, who lives in Fullerton, was a former Orange High School Spanish teacher. Police were alerted of a possible relationship between Peterson and the girl student. School officials were then told and Peterson did not return to teach, The Orange County Register reported.
He didn't return to teach because of the police investigation, police told The Register. Peterson's teaching credentials and certificates have been suspended, state records show.
Peterson started teaching in Kern County in 1990, at Arvin High School, Kern High School District spokesman John Teves said. He taught at Ridgeview High School starting in 1996.
He left the district voluntarily, and under good terms, in 2007 to move to Orange County, Teves said.
Peterson was rehired year after year, and there was "no hint that there was any kind of resemblance that's reflected in the incident reported in The Orange County Register," Teves said.
"He was basically a good teacher. We don't keep people around that long if they're not a good teacher," Teves said. "There was never anything that ever happened that would suggest he would do something like this."
Police told The Register that Peterson and the teenager appeared to have had an ongoing relationship. Authorities are asking anyone with information on the case to call 714-744-7572.
Attempts to reach Peterson Friday evening were unsuccessful.
Most CommentedMost Popular
Since Karen Goh returned to Kern County from a publishing career in New York in 2004, she has helped foster a strong network of Christian leaders in government, politics, media, business and nonprofits.
California voters approved Proposition 215 in 1996, giving "seriously ill Californians ... the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes" as recommended by a physician.
Is Kern County, as has widely been reported, really the expulsion capital of California? That's the question posed Friday by state Sen. Michael Rubio, D-Shafter, to 50 or so Kern County educators, elementary and high school district administrators and community leaders.
Kern County has agreed to pay a Kern River Valley family $1 million for wrongfully taking their son in 2008 when the family was in a dispute with the South Fork Union School District over how school officials were dealing with the boy's food allergies.
A Bakersfield mother of two who took up competitive cycling nine months ago after an injury ended her marathoning career died Sunday while competing in a bicycle race outside Yosemite National Park.
A Bakersfield police officer shot and killed a man who was armed with a gun in a northwest Bakersfield apartment Monday morning.
Since Karen Goh returned to Kern County from a publishing career in New York in 2004, she has helped foster a strong network of Christian leaders in government, politics, media, business and nonprofits.
Kern County has agreed to pay a Kern River Valley family $1 million for wrongfully taking their son in 2008 when the family was in a dispute with the South Fork Union School District over how school officials were dealing with the boy's food allergies.