A 43 year old worker at Highlands Intermediate School in Pearl City is the focus of a police investigation after a 12 year old student accused the man of fondling her Tuesday morning at around 11:30.

According to police, the girl reported the incident to school officials and identified the suspect in a police lineup. The man, who is not a teacher at the school, was arrested at the Hoolaulea Street campus Wednesday morning for sex assault in the third degree.

Milton Pang, whose son will attend Highlands next year, was unaware of the incident as he visited the school Thursday afternoon.

“The school has to follow up on these allegations and do whatever they have to do to number one, protect the kids,” said Pang. “I hope that the DOE does adequate background checks on these people and makes sure that there's no criminal history in their past.”

Leeward Complex Superintendent Keith Hayashi said all school employees go through an extensive interview process and are given a thorough background check by the Department of Education. “The employee background check basically consists of a fingerprinting and a check through the FBI data base as well as the Hawaii Criminal Justice Center,” he said.

Hayashi said the accused Highlands worker passed the screening process without raising any red flags and has been employed by the school the past five years.

“We are doing our own investigation as part of the standard procedure,” Hayashi told Khon2. “We're very committed to ensuring the safety of all of our students, safety of our employees as well as the safety of our community.”

The suspect has been placed paid leave until both the police and DOE investigations are finished.

While parents like Pang are concerned about the alleged assault, he’s willing to give the suspect the benefit of the doubt until investigators conclude their inquiry. “You have to just let the investigation go forward and see what happens,” he said.

Hayashi says there have been cases where a school employee was falsely accused by a student of a committing a crime. “There's been misunderstandings in the past and so that's why it's important I think that our department, we do our own investigation.”

The suspect had not been charged as of this writing and was released from custody Wednesday afternoon.

Andrew may be reached at apereira@khon2.com or ph. 591-4263.