Police: Fired teacher was subject of complaints

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Updated: March 18, 2012 8:06AM

A longtime teacher in Cook County School District 130, who was fired in December, allegedly touched two female students in an “inappropriate manner” but not sexually, according to police reports obtained by the SouthtownStar.

Blue Island police considered both cases “battery of an insulting nature” and not sexual in nature, Police Chief Doug Hoglund said. The parents of each girl declined to press charges, Hoglund said.

Roberto Sarli, who also was president of the teachers’ union, was placed on administrative leave in November when the allegations surfaced and the District 130 board fired him a month later.

Burt Odelson, the school district’s attorney, said Sarli has appealed his firing and the case is scheduled to go to an arbitrator in April. Meanwhile, the two sides are working on a retirement package, Odelson said.

“If he accepts the retirement ahead of (the arbitration), it’s over,” Odelson said.

Sarli, who worked 33 years in the district, could get his job back if an arbitrator were to rule in his favor, Odelson said.

District officials have refused to say why Sarli was fired. After the board in December voted 4 to 1 to fire Sarli, board secretary Joyce Pilewski told a reporter, “It’s not for you to get (understand).”

Two phone calls to Sarli’s home in Blue Island were not returned Tuesday. Another message left Wednesday was not returned. A reporter visited Sarli’s home Thursday. Nobody answered the door or called the reporter later. Sarli has not responded to numerous other attempts to contact him since December.

Sarli is being represented by an attorney with the Illinois Education Association, said an IEA spokeswoman who declined further comment Thursday.

According to police reports obtained by the SouthtownStar through the Freedom of Information Act, two female students at Veterans Memorial School, 12320 Greenwood Ave., in Blue Island, told police Sarli inappropriately touched them last semester.

Police were contacted on Nov. 17 by school Principal Carrie Tisch, who said a counselor, Ken Andjulis, had told her about the two students’ claims, police said.

Andjulis had talked with the first girl about poor grades and missed assignments. When he returned her to Sarli’s classroom, she told him she was not interested in after-school tutoring with Sarli because being with him made her “feel uncomfortable,” the counselor said in the police report.

The first girl told the counselor about a second girl who had issues with Sarli, according to the report.

The second girl told Andjulis she “does not stay after school anymore because Mr. Sarli makes her feel uncomfortable,” according to the report.

The second girl told her mother, who told the school she wanted her daughter to be pulled out of Sarli’s class, the report said. The school complied, according to the police report.

Sarli, a longtime soccer coach in the district, was a bilingual teacher at Veterans Memorial School.

The parents of each girl told police in late December they did not want to pursue criminal charges against Sarli because they did not want their daughters testifying in court.

In November, Sarli coached the boys varsity soccer team to a championship.

Tisch and Andjulis did not return phone calls seeking comment.