Passing The Trash

When I saw this article, it made my blood boil, thought I would pass it along
(the incompetency of government continues)

How is it that sexual predators are getting a free pass in our children's schools?
From Reader's Digest, January 2007, by Michael Crowley.

Passing the Trash
When Randall Crane came to teach at Jennings Middle School in Akron, Ohio, the superintendent felt lucky to get him. After all, the principal at Crane's previous school in Manchester had given him a glowing letter of recommendation, noting his "outgoing personality" and saying, "I wouldn't hesitate to hire him again."
Oh, really? That same principal helped oversee an investigation into Crane's relationships with his female students, after accusations that included "too much touching of girls," "too much like boyfriend/ girlfriend," and "taking girls into rooms with the door closed." Crane denied any wrongdoing, but agreed to resign.

No one at Jennings knew about Crane's earlier conduct because, the Manchester superintendent told a local newspaper, "you don't want to pass problems on to other schools, but at the same time, you weigh that against what you can say that might cause litigation for your school too."

So Crane got his sterling recommendation and a new teaching job. Last June, he got something else: a two-year sentence for having sex with a 14-year-old student.

After being shown papers detailing Crane's inappropriate behavior in Manchester, the Akron superintendent said to a reporter, "No other district would have hired that individual knowing what you just showed me in that file."

"It's called 'passing the trash,'" says Kansas State University professor Robert Shoop, an expert witness in nearly 50 school abuse cases. "I've worked with individuals who are in their fourth or fifth district, and you find out they've been molesting people for 20 years."

This shuffling of sleazy characters from school district to school district is just one way we're failing to fully protect our children. It's no small concern: In 2004, a U.S. Department of Education study found that nearly 10 percent of public school students have endured unwanted sexual attention from school employees, and close to 7 percent had experienced actual sexual contact -- anything from pinching to kissing to outright molestation.

Let's make one thing clear: Most teachers are honest, hardworking, and truly care for their students. And it's important to protect teachers from false allegations, especially when harassment and abuse charges are used as punishment for bad grades or strict discipline.

Still, there's no denying that the threat from molesters exists in every state. In West Virginia, for example, sexual abuse of students is the No. 1 reason teachers lost their licenses over the past five years -- a whopping 35 percent of all licenses lost. And a Detroit News study found that, in the 15 months from January 2004 to April 2005, 22 present or former school employees were convicted of sexual misconduct involving minors or the mentally impaired.The vast majority were teachers, although a coach and a janitor were also among those convicted.

Perhaps the creepiest thing is all the sexual predators we don't even know about. When The New York Times recently investigated pedophiles, it found that "the most frequent job mentioned was schoolteacher." How many parents shuddered when it turned out that a slime ball named John Mark Karr -- the man who claimed to have murdered Jon Benet Ramsey -- taught elementary school?

Zero Tolerance
We obviously don't have enough safeguards in place to keep perverts out of the schools. And the biggest problem is a background-check system that looks like Swiss cheese.

Most states require a criminal background check for school employees, but some schools only check state databases, not national ones like the FBI's National Crime Information Center. Schools also need to be candid about former teachers when another school inquires about an applicant.

That's how an Iowa school in the Northwood-Kensett district got burned in 2000 when a teacher, Daniel Eveleth, was accused of having a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old student. It turns out that Eveleth had been at the center of sexual controversy before. A few years earlier, court records reveal, he had been accused of sexual harassment at another Iowa public school district known as BCLUW -- a charge that investigators believed to be credible. Eveleth subsequently resigned. Yet, according to the Northwood-Kensett superintendent, before hiring Eveleth, he contacted the BCLUW school district and no red flags came up. Not only that, in exchange for his resignation, Eveleth got a positive letter of recommendation from BCLUW school officials and a promise that the district would keep mum about the accusations against him.

Appalling settlements like this aren't unusual. In many cases, the first priority of school districts is to avoid expensive battles with unions and the bad headlines that can come with legal action. So they'll let an accused teacher resign quietly, sometimes with a financial settlement. Since 2000, West Virginia schools, for example, have reportedly paid nearly $7 million in settlements to suspected sexual predators.

In the 1990s, Hofstra University professor Charol Shakeshaft studied 225 complaints against teachers where there was convincing evidence sexual abuse had occurred. In more than half, school superintendents allowed the accused teachers to resign or retire with no blemish on their records. And, Shakeshaft says, in none of those 225 cases did the superintendents notify the police, a legal mandate as of 2000.

You'd think politicians would be demanding tougher laws, but many shy away from measures like mandatory background checks, in part because they're afraid to cross powerful teachers unions.

At a minimum, schools must warn state officials when they have concerns about a teacher -- and the police should always notify schools about any troubling past charges. States might also follow the lead of New York, where a superintendent can be charged with a felony for letting a teacher resign rather than face a sexual misconduct allegation. Or Iowa, where after the Eveleth case, the state legislature passed a law saying that if an employee is terminated or resigns due to the sexual exploitation of a child, it must be reported to the Board of Educational Examiners. And, of course, any principal caught "passing the trash" should get the book thrown at him too.

It's easy to say we have zero tolerance for sexual predators in schools, but we haven't yet passed the test

this is a state by state thing, since child predator laws are state offenses unless the predator goes across state lines to commit the crimes. the article focuses apparently on areas where incompetence and/or lack of child predator laws exist. in new jersey, i know i had to get fingerprinted and have a background check to be a substitute teacher.

andu wrote: love conquers all