Back to the Table of Contents Page

Back to the Voice Home Page

Classifieds

Publication Date: Friday, October 11, 2002

Frankum admits improper sexual contacts while teaching

By Justin Scheck

Sandy Mathieson and Mia Bossie had all but forgotten about Tom Frankum, their high school social studies teacher, since a groping incident shortly after their 1980 graduation made them decide to cut off contact with him.

But last month, after seeing Frankum, 61, campaigning for a city council seat at the Art and Wine Festival, Mathieson called Bossie, and the two -- now 40 years old and with teenage children of their own -- decided to speak publicly about their experiences with the candidate, who taught at Gunn High School in Palo Alto from 1971 to 1989.

"I put this to bed years ago. ... But he put his face out there, and his Web site really did it to him. When I saw the index at the top, listing all his expertise with kids and his 18 years of teaching, that really did it," said Bossie. "It just gave me the willies."

A former planning commissioner who prominently lists integrity and involvement with youth groups in his campaign materials, Frankum last week confirmed the women's claims that he had been involved in a series of sexual incidents with his students in the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1989 he agreed to give up his teaching credential at Gunn in a confidential settlement with the Palo Alto Unified School District.

Bossie recounted an incident in which Frankum touched her inappropriately shortly after her graduation; Mathieson spoke of the frequent conversations she had with her teacher in which he asked her detailed questions about her sex life.

Frankum confirmed the incident with Bossie, and said he had sexual "liaisons" with two of his students in the late '70s, but was never disciplined for these acts. He said he worked to put these actions behind him, and sought counseling in subsequent years.

"My past is my past," he said. "I'm not perfect, and I'm willing to put it behind me. I already have put it behind me," said Frankum.

The actions that precipitated his departure are confidential under the settlement, and Frankum said he is legally bound to keep those details private. Mary Armstrong, general counsel for the California Committee on Teacher Credentialing, confirmed that Frankum's teaching credential was revoked, but said that, under state law, she could not comment further.

Frankum did not say whether the incident was sex-related, but he did say that between the early '80s and his departure he did not have further sexual contacts with his students.

Mathieson and Bossie, who contacted the Voice over the past two weeks, said Frankum frequently asked students probing questions about the intimate details of their sex lives. Both women said that, as teenagers, they felt these conversations were strange, but not necessarily inappropriate. They kept up a friendly relationship with the teacher until the 1981 groping incident.

In a 1981 letter to Mathieson that she saved for more than 20 years, Frankum detailed what happened:

"It strikes me that you were upset and angry about what you learned from Mia. Let me tell you how I felt about the incident. The way it happened was that I noticed she was not wearing a bra and I touched her breast, a few minutes later I did so again. This was on a Friday and I regretted it right away."

"We were talking (in the Gunn parking lot) ... and next thing I know he has his hand down my shirt," Bossie said last week.

"I'm familiar with that incident, and she provoked it," said Frankum.

Bossie and Mathieson said that after the incident -- and the subsequent letter -- they cut off contact with Frankum, and he quickly faded into the past.

"I really hadn't thought about him for years. It's not like I was traumatized by him," Mathieson said. "I figured he had moved away, out of the area."

But after realizing that Frankum was running for the council on the basis of his integrity and experience with youth, Mathieson contacted Bossie, and the two agreed that Mountain View voters should know about the candidate's past.

"I couldn't believe he was campaigning as an advocate for youth, Mathieson said. She said that when she was a student, Frankum would ask her and her friends intimate questions about their sexual interests and experiences.

Frankum said that since one of his classes, "family life," had a sex education component, students would often come to him with questions about intimacy. But, he said, he never solicited information on individual students' sex lives.

Mathieson -- who lives in Los Altos Hills -- remembered differently. He would ask "have you lost your virginity? What day? Do you remember where? This was out of class, one on one," said Mathieson.

"You'd think, with a sex education teacher, we'd be talking about safe sex or birth control, but that was never the case with him," she added. "We thought it was weird, but weird in a 'teenagers can handle anything, so laugh it off' kind of way. But at the time, nobody was asking us that stuff, not even our parents."

Frankum contends that he was constantly under scrutiny as a sex education teacher, and that as a confidant to students, issues of sex would come up in conversation.

Bossie -- who lives in Santa Cruz -- and Mathieson both said they struggled with the decision of whether to come forward with the information about Frankum. But after seeing that, on his Web site, he lists his service on the boards of Safe Haven for Youth -- which provides emergency services for youth in crisis - - and the Community Health Awareness Council, a child health organization, they felt Frankum's past was directly relevant to his campaign.

"He looks like his reputation, and the work he's done in the past years (since 1989) is really positive. But I think it's also very fraudulent," said Mathieson. Frankum disagreed.

"There's nothing here that's recent enough or deals with my character enough in any way that it would impact my ability to run a city," he said.