District Administration - March 2010 - (Page 50)

SAFETY & SECURITY BY ALAN DESSOFF ROM COSTLY LAWSUITS on behalf of victims to negative media coverage, such as the one recently played out in the District of Columbia Public Schools when Chancellor Michelle Rhee stated that one teacher was laid off for suspicion of sexual misconduct, districts can face potentially devastating consequences as a result of sexual abuse of their students by district employees. By adopting strong policies that include training all their personnel about what sexual abuse is, how to spot the warning signs, and what to do if they suspect a co-worker is doing something improper, administrators can diminish the impacts and try to prevent future incidents. “We have an epidemic of educator sexual misconduct in our nation’s schools, and nothing is really being done to curtail it. Most of the time, districts would rather stick their heads in the sand than Battling Sexual Abuse Proactively training employees is crucial to a district strategy. face these issues as they should,” declares Terri Miller, president of Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation (SESAME), a Las Vegas-based nonprofit advocacy organization. “A lot of districts try to cover up or discourage complaints [of sexual abuse or harassment] or don’t follow through on them because they make superficial judgments that they are specious complaints,” according to Marvin Kreps, the director of curriculum and instruction in the Rhinebeck (N.Y.) Central School District. “ at’s a very risky strategy.” Rhinebeck administrators were required to take aggressive action, including training all district personnel in what the warning signs of abuse are and how to report them, as the result of a lawsuit filed in 2003 against the district and a high school principal who allegedly sexually harassed several of the school’s students. A court approved a consent decree, an agreement between the parties in the case, which required the training and ordered the district to pay $152,500 in compensation to the student victims and to pay their attorney fees as well. District Administration 50 March 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - March 2010

District Administration - March 2010
Contents
From the Editor
News Update
Curriculum Update
Conversations
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Toward a More Perfect Union
The Moxie of Kathy Cox
Logging On to Learn
Battling Sexual Abuse
Supervisor’s Opinion
Problem/Solution
Crisis Response
Product Focus
New Products
Tech Disruptions

District Administration - March 2010

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