New Ramona High Principal Had Rocky Finale as Boulder Schools Chief

Christopher “Chris” King, named last week as the new principal at Ramona High School, says he’s “coming in fresh and new and looking forward, not backward.”

He was referring to his hopes of healing wounds—“just one relationship at a time”—in the wake of an averted strike by the Ramona Teachers Association.

But it could just as well refer to his own rocky experience in Boulder, CO, where two years ago he was a schools superintendent under fire.

A wrestling coach in his district named Travis Masse was on trial, accused of molesting an underage girl on a team trip to Fountain Valley, and King offered evidence to prosecutors and police on how he had given Masse a key to the eighth-floor room where the crime occurred.

King didn’t need the room, he said, because his wrestler son had been eliminated from the tournament, so his family decided to go to Los Angeles to sightsee.

See full statement by Chris King on Travis Masse case.

“Since our room for Saturday night was prepaid and we weren’t going to use it, we gave the key to Mr. Masse so that coaches and wrestlers, who were staying four to a room, could use the extra space.”

King says he received “praise and thanks” from the local district attorney’s office, police and Boulder Valley school board for the information.

But King came under fire and suspicion.

In a 770-word statement sent to Patch on Thursday, King wrote: “After the trial, some people suggested through the local media that I should have come forward with this information earlier. These individuals spoke without knowing that my wife and I had no access to details of the investigation and were never even questioned during the investigation.

“They also didn’t know that, the moment I heard the victim’s testimony, I left the courtroom and went straight to the first available officer. As parents who entrusted their own child to be mentored by this man, we were outraged by Masse’s crimes and were relieved to see him convicted.”

Masse, 30, was sentenced to 10 years to life. 

But the case also spawned a civil suit against Masse (pronounced MASS-ee) that named King as a defendant.

That federal suit was dismissed in November 2012, but is now on appeal.

King is a Rancho Bernardo resident with a daughter who just finished her junior year at Poway High School. He says he first moved to Poway after retiring from the Boulder Valley School District and taking a job as interim superintendent in the Anaheim City School District, where he was accused of nepotism. 

King denies that, and called the blogger “a crackpot.”

Robert Graeff, the Ramona schools chief, says King’s background was checked out “very thoroughly, just as we do for all other district hires.”

In the Boulder incident, King “was connected to a very high profile and ugly teacher misconduct incident only through an unlucky combination of circumstances,” Graeff told Patch.  

“After extensive conversations with officials in Colorado and a review of the available records, we are satisfied that he was not involved in any way with that very unfortunate situation.” 

Instead, he said: “We are very excited about Dr. King's history of successful leadership in a variety of high school settings and his extraordinary work in a K-12 setting.  We believe that his level of experience and commitment to high school education will be a genuine asset to Ramona High and our entire community.”

Once King completes his district screening, Graeff says he’ll have an annual salary of $135,637.

King will succeed award-winning principal Tony Newman, who is staying with the district and already has begun briefing King.

“He’s answering a lot of my questions,” King said of Newman. “Having him in the district will be invaluable to me.”

King said he’s being tasked with continuing Newman’s good rapport with students and teachers, “and then with any good school, there’s a constant desire to see student achievement raised.”

A longtime principal in Colorado before becoming schools chief, King headed a district about the size of Poway’s.

The Boulder district has 55 school sites, 4,000 and 28,000 students. 55 school sites, he said.

But King isn’t considering his new role a demotion.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” he said. “I think it’s noble and honorable work. And I’m excited to do it at a school as neat as Ramona.”

He said he is looking to buy property in Ramona, and “our long-range plan is to move up in that direction.”

His wife, Kelley, is a former principal who’s written three education books and travels as a speaker, and his daughter, Roxy, is a singer-songwriter with her own website as well. His son just finished his freshman year at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Why did he leave Colorado?

“Because I retired and my kids wanted to go to college in California,” King said via email. “Moving here in 2011 made my son eligible for in-state tuition in 2012. He just finished his freshman year at Cal Poly-SLO. Also, my daughter's involvement in the entertainment industry made the move desirable.

“We planned on moving for several years before I retired in Colorado.”

—Melissa Phy contributed to this report.