Terry Braye, Teacher Exiled From School District for 'Creepy' Behavior, Defends Himself on Camera
Today we published a cover story on Terry Braye, the once-praised music teacher at Visitacion Valley Middle School who was banished from the San Francisco school district following allegations that he'd had inappropriate contact with female students.
In this on-camera interview, Braye plays us The Mamas & the Papas' "California Dreamin'," one of the songs he taught his guitar students. He also talks how he was taken down on allegations of perverted behavior - accusations that he says have no merit.
Braye says he was abandoned by a school district "covering its ass": "The [school] district threw me to the police without any kind of process. I was a hard working, extremely successful employee of theirs and there was no chance for me to go c'mon ... Maybe the district would say you shouldn't take [the students] to eat or feed them ... or maybe you shouldn't take them home. Instead they threw me into the hands of people whose job is to put people in jail -- and they did."
Braye says the worst part of the terms of his five-year probation is that he can't contact anyone from the school district, leaving him no way to defend himself to former coworkers or students (at least until they graduate and turn 18).
"A lot of people who want to denigrate me don't understand just really how important I was to these kids. The kids got it, the adults have ruined that ... now the kids think ... 'I was so stupid, I was so wrong, I thought Mr. Braye was cool and now he's not. He's a weirdo.' And I'd like to take each one of them and say 'Do you really think I'm a weirdo?' And each one of them would say 'No.' I don't get to have a say."
Write Comment
Email to Friend
Print Article
