A court in Hawaii was asked last week to seal the records of a historical case involving the current superintendent of School District 43 (SD43).
The lawyer for Robert Zambrano, defence attorney Richard H.S. Sing, was in court on Jan. 16, 2025, to put forward a motion to seal the documents.
The case dates back to 1986 when Zambrano was 19 and on a trip with his Vancouver soccer club in Oahu.
The charges against him, and three others, were dropped.
According to court records obtained by the Tri-City News, as well as a front page article in the Vancouver Sun in 1986 — of which a clipping was forwarded to the Tri-City News by several people and anonymously by SD43 staff — Zambrano and two other soccer players, also 19, were held on $45,000 bail each following kidnapping and sex crimes allegations by a 13-year-old Waikiki girl.
The Vancouver Sun article said the fourth soccer player, who was 18 and is not named, was dating the girl. It is alleged she visited him at his hotel room on July 31, 1986, which he was sharing with the others.
“She told police she was held there against her will and assaulted,” the newspaper article states.
The men were later charged with three felonies: rape, kidnapping and sexual abuse.
Zambrano and the two others were released from the Oahu Community Correctional Center on Aug. 13, 1986. The last entry in the three-year legal case is on Aug. 14, 1989, when it was set for a pretrial conference before a judge.
A request for comment from Zambrano’s lawyer Sing was not immediately returned.
The LinkedIn profile for Zambrano, which is now disabled, noted he was the goalkeeper for a varsity soccer team from 1985 to 1990, before he was hired by SD43.
At UBC, he earned bachelor’s degrees in science (zoology) and education and later received his master’s degree in science (educational leadership) from the University of Oregon.
In SD43, he taught science, math and French at Pinetree Secondary and Hastings Junior Secondary for eight years before moving to Minnekhada Middle as vice principal for two years. Zambrano was also the vice principal of Terry Fox Secondary and principal at Citadel and Hillcrest middle schools, as well as Centennial Secondary.
In 2015, he was appointed as a district superintendent — a post he held for nine years and was responsible for student wellness and safety, Community Link and Indigenous education at 17 schools, including two alternate schools.
Zambrano was also the district’s liaison to other government, nonprofit and municipal organizations such as Fraser Health, the Ministry of Children and Family Development, RCMP, Port Moody Police and SHARE.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Zambrano was the co-district lead, and was responsible for SD43’s Emergency Operation Centre and the District Critical Incident Response Team.
Last October, SD43’s board of education announced Zambrano would replace Patricia Gartland as superintendent on Dec. 1, 2024, after she retired.
Zambrano is now due to retire on Feb. 15, 2025. He is currently on medical leave.
Today, Jan. 21, the board of education is expected to meet to determine the next steps for Zambrano's successor.
SD43 provided the following statement to the Tri-City News on Jan. 21:
“School District 43 received information regarding a historical allegation involving Assistant Superintendent Robert Zambrano, from before he was employed by the district.
“Following a thorough three-month external investigation during which Mr. Zambrano was fully supportive and cooperative, the investigator found that Mr. Zambrano did not engage in the conduct alleged and that his record of arrest and charges had been expunged by a court in 1989, prior to his employment in the district.
“While Mr. Zambrano appreciates that the investigator has confirmed that the decades-old charges were dropped without any findings of misconduct against him, he has made the difficult decision to retire from his position.
“The district would like to sincerely thank Mr. Zambrano for his years of service and his commitment to our school community.
“As this is a personnel matter the district will not be commenting further.”
SD43 also posted a statement from Zambrano on its website, which reads: “Given the unfortunate attention this matter has brought to our school district, I believe this decision is in the best interests of the organization, my colleagues and the communities that I have had the pleasure of serving for the past 34 years, and my family.”
As for his pension, Michelle Daycock, the executive director of SD43 human resources, told the Tri-City News she was unable to provide specifics for privacy reasons; however, in general, for all members of the Teachers Pension Plan, pension amounts are based on contributions over an employee’s best five years of contributions.
“In the case where an employee had an increased salary for a very short period of time, the contributions would only be increased for that short period as well and hence there would be minimal impact on the best five years and the resulting pension amount,” she wrote.
— with additional research from Mario Bartel, Tri-City News
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