Problems with western schools and system
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Re: US Student and Parent Kissing Prank goes Viral
No, I get your point that yes it is not the best "environment" for your kids to grow up but you have to weight the benefits over the costs. Look, if you are a muslim parent then you ultimately have the duty to instil values/morals to your children so that irrespective of the place they are put in they always act according to what they were taught growing up and hence, should be able to differentiate right from wrong. So if muslims parents can instil the right values they should have no worry about the type of school they might be placing their children, after all they are doing so so that they might get a decent education have have opportunities in the future.
No, I get your point that yes it is not the best "environment" for your kids to grow up but you have to weight the benefits over the costs. Look, if you are a muslim parent then you ultimately have the duty to instil values/morals to your children so that irrespective of the place they are put in they always act according to what they were taught growing up and hence, should be able to differentiate right from wrong. So if muslims parents can instil the right values they should have no worry about the type of school they might be placing their children, after all they are doing so so that they might get a decent education have have opportunities in the future.
islamica
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Re: US Student and Parent Kissing Prank goes Viral
would the mods please change the thread title to "problems with western schools"
Post away. I'm still waiting.
would the mods please change the thread title to "problems with western schools"
islamica
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Re: US Student and Parent Kissing Prank goes Viral
Teacher charged with sex crimes against pupils
20 Nov 09
A male high school teacher in Skövde, western Sweden, has been arrested and charged with a string of sexual offences including child rape.
The 41-year-old was led by police out of Helena school on Tuesday and was remanded in custody on Friday by Skaraborg district court.
He has been suspended from the school without pay and a tribunal will begin next week which is expected to result in his dismissal.
While admitting that he has engaged in sexual activities with a student, he denies the other charges of which he is accused.
According to a TV4 report, the teacher began having sexual liaisons with a female pupil at the beginning of the year.
When the allegations recently came to light, it was suspected this was not the first time he had forged a sexual relationship with a student.
Last week, Anna Sundström, school chief for Skövde municipality took action and reported the teacher to the police.
“I fail to see any extenuating circumstances,” she told TV4. “Unfortunately, this seems to be a case that has repeated itself. It was only last week when the real seriousness of what has happened was revealed.”
The school is now working with teachers and students and three counsellors have been put in place to offer one-on-one discussions.
“This is a very unusual situation,” Bertil Lönn, headmaster of Helena school, told TV4. “Naturally we have to discuss the issue but we have not yet confirmed where we go from here.”
http://www.thelocal.se/23390/20091120/
2 Oct 09
Three boys aged 12-13-years-old are suspected of having raped a 10-year-old girl at a school in Linköping in central Sweden.
The alleged assault occurred while the children were on their lunch break in an area of woodland near the school.
The school reported the incident to the council and to the police on Wednesday after the visibly shaken girl told teachers of her ordeal.
"I don't know if the boys have confessed. The police are investigating the matter now, but we consider this to be a very serious incident," Thomas Brandin at Linköping council said at press conference held on Tuesday, local newspaper Corren.se reports.
Linköping police have confirmed that the boys have not yet been interviewed and that they have classified the case as rape.
The school has however talked to the boys and confirms that they have admitted the offence, according to a report in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
As the boys are under the age of criminal responsibility there will not be a legal consequences as a result of the alleged rape.
http://www.thelocal.se/22430/20091002/
Teacher charged with sex crimes against pupils
20 Nov 09
A male high school teacher in Skövde, western Sweden, has been arrested and charged with a string of sexual offences including child rape.
The 41-year-old was led by police out of Helena school on Tuesday and was remanded in custody on Friday by Skaraborg district court.
He has been suspended from the school without pay and a tribunal will begin next week which is expected to result in his dismissal.
While admitting that he has engaged in sexual activities with a student, he denies the other charges of which he is accused.
According to a TV4 report, the teacher began having sexual liaisons with a female pupil at the beginning of the year.
When the allegations recently came to light, it was suspected this was not the first time he had forged a sexual relationship with a student.
Last week, Anna Sundström, school chief for Skövde municipality took action and reported the teacher to the police.
“I fail to see any extenuating circumstances,” she told TV4. “Unfortunately, this seems to be a case that has repeated itself. It was only last week when the real seriousness of what has happened was revealed.”
The school is now working with teachers and students and three counsellors have been put in place to offer one-on-one discussions.
“This is a very unusual situation,” Bertil Lönn, headmaster of Helena school, told TV4. “Naturally we have to discuss the issue but we have not yet confirmed where we go from here.”
http://www.thelocal.se/23390/20091120/
Pre-teen girl reports rape at Swedish school
2 Oct 09
Three boys aged 12-13-years-old are suspected of having raped a 10-year-old girl at a school in Linköping in central Sweden.
The alleged assault occurred while the children were on their lunch break in an area of woodland near the school.
The school reported the incident to the council and to the police on Wednesday after the visibly shaken girl told teachers of her ordeal.
"I don't know if the boys have confessed. The police are investigating the matter now, but we consider this to be a very serious incident," Thomas Brandin at Linköping council said at press conference held on Tuesday, local newspaper Corren.se reports.
Linköping police have confirmed that the boys have not yet been interviewed and that they have classified the case as rape.
The school has however talked to the boys and confirms that they have admitted the offence, according to a report in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
As the boys are under the age of criminal responsibility there will not be a legal consequences as a result of the alleged rape.
http://www.thelocal.se/22430/20091002/
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Crystal
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Re: US Student and Parent Kissing Prank goes Viral
I am so shocked at how most of you are talking as if this happens in every western school and that people in the west are all like this - Only about 2 people on the whole thread are able to open their eyes and not generalise - bad things happen everywhere stop acting like it is confined to the west!
I think most people in the west would speak out against these issues and if you think otherwise its clearly because you have no experience in western society - dont judge what you don't know!
I am so shocked at how most of you are talking as if this happens in every western school and that people in the west are all like this - Only about 2 people on the whole thread are able to open their eyes and not generalise - bad things happen everywhere stop acting like it is confined to the west!
I think most people in the west would speak out against these issues and if you think otherwise its clearly because you have no experience in western society - dont judge what you don't know!
islamica
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Re: US Student and Parent Kissing Prank goes Viral
Honey i grew up here. Keep reading the thread as I educate you and those two "reasonable" people on the what goes on in your western school systems and why even conservative christians are homeschooling more and more every year.
Honey i grew up here. Keep reading the thread as I educate you and those two "reasonable" people on the what goes on in your western school systems and why even conservative christians are homeschooling more and more every year.
Crystal
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Re: US Student and Parent Kissing Prank goes Viral
And yes there are bad things that happen in schools but it doesn't happen in every school - its wrong of you to generalise. I never lived in America but I live in Ireland and stuff like this people would be outraged - the majority of schools here are single sex - I can't speak for America but don't generalise the whole west for being like this.
I am not honey.
And yes there are bad things that happen in schools but it doesn't happen in every school - its wrong of you to generalise. I never lived in America but I live in Ireland and stuff like this people would be outraged - the majority of schools here are single sex - I can't speak for America but don't generalise the whole west for being like this.
GuestFellow
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Re: US Student and Parent Kissing Prank goes Viral
Salaam,
Whilst your "educating" me, you do well to address my remaining posts.
Salaam,
Whilst your "educating" me, you do well to address my remaining posts.
islamica
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Re: US Student and Parent Kissing Prank goes Viral
wasalaams,
keep reading the the posts and you'll have your answer.
wasalaams,
keep reading the the posts and you'll have your answer.
GuestFellow
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:Re: US Student and Parent Kissing Prank goes Viral
Sister you do go to school but not to all of schools around the world. This is a very sickening prank and most principal's would agree. Parents should put their kids in a Islamic environment in order to prevent fitnah but it's easy to prevent it at school by simply attending you classes and avoiding the wrong crowd.
Sister you do go to school but not to all of schools around the world. This is a very sickening prank and most principal's would agree. Parents should put their kids in a Islamic environment in order to prevent fitnah but it's easy to prevent it at school by simply attending you classes and avoiding the wrong crowd.
islamica
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Re: US Student and Parent Kissing Prank goes Viral
Bus Driver Child Porn Bust
06/04/09
Anniston, AL - The man responsible for transporting a bus full of children to and from school faces a very serious charge.
68-year old Phillip Bernard Williamson of Anniston has been arrested for allegedly having pornographic images of underage children on his home computer. He's been driving with the Calhoun County School System for years. Although he has not been convicted this allegation is enough for parents to have a tough talk with their children about safety.
For Tanya Harris-Brown, it's a breach of trust. Her daughter rides the bus to elementary school. Although Williamson is not her child's driver, she's upset that he allegedly saved photos on his home computer of undressed children under the age of seventeen. Harris-Brown says, "That makes you not even want to put your kids on the bus. That makes me not want to put my kids on the bus."
According to a police report Williamson has been arrested before, however the Calhoun County Board of Education says he passed all background checks required to be a school bus driver. Anniston Police say Williamson turned his computer over to a repair shop. They noticed the photos and reported them to police. After obtaining a search warrant a forensics team based in Hoover verified the underage images The District Attorney issued an arrest warrant.
For parents it's a reminder to talk to your children about boundaries, not only with strangers but also with people they know and quite possibly trust.
Harris-Brown says, "That's what I tell my kids every day as they leave the house if somebody touches you or says something to you in a way that's very uncomfortable I want to know as soon as you get in the house because I want to take care of it."
As for that previous arrest listed on the police report, Lt. Rocky Stemen says he doesn't know Williamson's criminal history, but he believes if the charges were related he's sure that would have surfaced.
Superintendent Judy Stiefel says no arrests appeared on his background check. Also, the School Board hopes he'll go to court before school starts this fall. His employment depends on a guilty or not guilty verdict.
__________________________________________________ _______
Massachusetts School Bus Driver Allegedly Asked Cheerleaders to Lift Up Shirts for Money
November 25, 2008
A longtime school bus driver could be fired after several members of a cheerleading squad in Lynnfield, Mass., said he offered them $40 to lift up their shirts.
Driver Bill Diamond, 56, was suspended without pay after the allegations surfaced, MyFOXBoston.com reported. Diamond has been at the job for 23 years.
"This clearly goes well beyond any bounds of acceptable behavior," said town administrator William Gustus.
Police said Diamond approached the girls with his request after a cheerleading competition in Lowell. The high school students found another ride home and went to authorities, who in turn questioned the bus driver, according to MyFOXBoston.com.
The driver allegedly didn't deny that the accusations were true.
Diamond has no record and was described by co-workers and his supervisor as a quiet man who keeps to himself.
He faces termination for the alleged incident.
Bus Driver Child Porn Bust
06/04/09
Anniston, AL - The man responsible for transporting a bus full of children to and from school faces a very serious charge.
68-year old Phillip Bernard Williamson of Anniston has been arrested for allegedly having pornographic images of underage children on his home computer. He's been driving with the Calhoun County School System for years. Although he has not been convicted this allegation is enough for parents to have a tough talk with their children about safety.
For Tanya Harris-Brown, it's a breach of trust. Her daughter rides the bus to elementary school. Although Williamson is not her child's driver, she's upset that he allegedly saved photos on his home computer of undressed children under the age of seventeen. Harris-Brown says, "That makes you not even want to put your kids on the bus. That makes me not want to put my kids on the bus."
According to a police report Williamson has been arrested before, however the Calhoun County Board of Education says he passed all background checks required to be a school bus driver. Anniston Police say Williamson turned his computer over to a repair shop. They noticed the photos and reported them to police. After obtaining a search warrant a forensics team based in Hoover verified the underage images The District Attorney issued an arrest warrant.
For parents it's a reminder to talk to your children about boundaries, not only with strangers but also with people they know and quite possibly trust.
Harris-Brown says, "That's what I tell my kids every day as they leave the house if somebody touches you or says something to you in a way that's very uncomfortable I want to know as soon as you get in the house because I want to take care of it."
As for that previous arrest listed on the police report, Lt. Rocky Stemen says he doesn't know Williamson's criminal history, but he believes if the charges were related he's sure that would have surfaced.
Superintendent Judy Stiefel says no arrests appeared on his background check. Also, the School Board hopes he'll go to court before school starts this fall. His employment depends on a guilty or not guilty verdict.
__________________________________________________ _______
Massachusetts School Bus Driver Allegedly Asked Cheerleaders to Lift Up Shirts for Money
November 25, 2008
A longtime school bus driver could be fired after several members of a cheerleading squad in Lynnfield, Mass., said he offered them $40 to lift up their shirts.
Driver Bill Diamond, 56, was suspended without pay after the allegations surfaced, MyFOXBoston.com reported. Diamond has been at the job for 23 years.
"This clearly goes well beyond any bounds of acceptable behavior," said town administrator William Gustus.
Police said Diamond approached the girls with his request after a cheerleading competition in Lowell. The high school students found another ride home and went to authorities, who in turn questioned the bus driver, according to MyFOXBoston.com.
The driver allegedly didn't deny that the accusations were true.
Diamond has no record and was described by co-workers and his supervisor as a quiet man who keeps to himself.
He faces termination for the alleged incident.
islamica
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Re: US Student and Parent Kissing Prank goes Viral
No clean slate for teachers; chalk it up to lust
Four Albanian teachers have been censured for drunken and lewd behavior in a remote village school after they had sexual intercourse behind a classroom blackboard, local reports said Friday.
The Education Ministry sacked two male teachers, replaced the headmaster and put a female teacher on probation after incensed parents in Xhyre, near the Macedonia border, locked the schoolhouse to stop the drinking and fornication in class.
"I saw them acting shamefully through the window and I told my friends and parents," fourth-grader Elton Cuka told the Shqip daily. "They saw me and threatened to expel me from school."
Xhevahir Hohxa, father of another pupil, was indignant.
"Would you call someone a teacher who drinks raki at ten in the morning and gets drunk and chases the schoolgirls?" he demanded on Albanian television.
___________________________________
Former Pines elementary employee charged with sending lewd messages to kids
By JOEL MARINO and KATHY BUSHOUSE - March 06, 2009
PEMBROKE PINES — Police arrested a former elementary school employee Thursday after they say he sent lewd MySpace and phone text messages to three children and paid one of them $80 in exchange for naked pictures.
George Edilberto Francis, 21, of Pembroke Pines, was taken into custody Thursday afternoon and charged with several counts of transmission of harmful material to a minor and one count of sexual performance by a child.
The three children - one girl and two boys - are 12 and met Francis when he worked as a part-time, after-care worker at Pines Lakes Elementary, according to police records.
A school district spokesman said Francis was fired from that post, but he didn't know when that happened or why he was fired.
Police say a parent of one of the children told police on Feb. 4 that Francis sent sexually explicit messages to the child through the popular social networking Web site.
An investigation revealed Francis sent similar messages on MySpace and through cellphone text messages to the other children, according to Pembroke Pines police.
He also sent naked pictures of himself to one of the boys, and then paid that child to send him nude pictures in return, police said.
Officers who combed his computer and text messages found he asked the girl to meet him on a weekend and asked another boy to engage in sexual activities with him in a car, according to police records.
Police and school district officials say the children never met with Francis.
Patricia D. Yackel, the school's principal, sent a letter on Thursday to parents letting them know what happened.
"Please use this opportunity to remind your children about the importance of immediately reporting any inappropriate communications or other activities," Yackel wrote.
No clean slate for teachers; chalk it up to lust
Four Albanian teachers have been censured for drunken and lewd behavior in a remote village school after they had sexual intercourse behind a classroom blackboard, local reports said Friday.
The Education Ministry sacked two male teachers, replaced the headmaster and put a female teacher on probation after incensed parents in Xhyre, near the Macedonia border, locked the schoolhouse to stop the drinking and fornication in class.
"I saw them acting shamefully through the window and I told my friends and parents," fourth-grader Elton Cuka told the Shqip daily. "They saw me and threatened to expel me from school."
Xhevahir Hohxa, father of another pupil, was indignant.
"Would you call someone a teacher who drinks raki at ten in the morning and gets drunk and chases the schoolgirls?" he demanded on Albanian television.
___________________________________
Former Pines elementary employee charged with sending lewd messages to kids
By JOEL MARINO and KATHY BUSHOUSE - March 06, 2009
PEMBROKE PINES — Police arrested a former elementary school employee Thursday after they say he sent lewd MySpace and phone text messages to three children and paid one of them $80 in exchange for naked pictures.
George Edilberto Francis, 21, of Pembroke Pines, was taken into custody Thursday afternoon and charged with several counts of transmission of harmful material to a minor and one count of sexual performance by a child.
The three children - one girl and two boys - are 12 and met Francis when he worked as a part-time, after-care worker at Pines Lakes Elementary, according to police records.
A school district spokesman said Francis was fired from that post, but he didn't know when that happened or why he was fired.
Police say a parent of one of the children told police on Feb. 4 that Francis sent sexually explicit messages to the child through the popular social networking Web site.
An investigation revealed Francis sent similar messages on MySpace and through cellphone text messages to the other children, according to Pembroke Pines police.
He also sent naked pictures of himself to one of the boys, and then paid that child to send him nude pictures in return, police said.
Officers who combed his computer and text messages found he asked the girl to meet him on a weekend and asked another boy to engage in sexual activities with him in a car, according to police records.
Police and school district officials say the children never met with Francis.
Patricia D. Yackel, the school's principal, sent a letter on Thursday to parents letting them know what happened.
"Please use this opportunity to remind your children about the importance of immediately reporting any inappropriate communications or other activities," Yackel wrote.
Reflections
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Re: US Student and Parent Kissing Prank goes Viral
One word:
Ew.
One word:
Ew.
islamica
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Re: US Student and Parent Kissing Prank goes Viral
Mom attacks sex offender at courthouse
May 19th, 2009
The mother of one of the molester’s victims grabbed the sex offender by his shirt and yelled at him in a courthouse hallway.
Pascual Gonzalez, of Roxbury, NJ, was awaiting sentencing on Monday for sexually abusing the woman’s 14-year-old daughter when the mother attacked him. She was eventually restrained by deputies, the Daily Record reported. The woman told authorities that she heard Gonzalez comment that her daughter was “good.” Gonzalez denied that he made the remark and told officers that he planned to press charges against the woman.
This isn’t the first time the mom has attacked Gonzalez. On Aug. 2, after she found out that her daughter had been sexually abused, she allegedly attacked Gonzalez with a baseball bat. She is not being publicly named in order to protect her daughter’s identity.
Gonzalez, a 39-year-old father of four, had pleaded guilty in January to sexually assaulting the woman’s daughter over a three-month period. He also inappropriately touched her friend, a 15-year-old girl. On Monday, Gonzalez — a volunteer baseball and basketball coach — was sentenced to five years in prison.
Mom attacks sex offender at courthouse
May 19th, 2009
The mother of one of the molester’s victims grabbed the sex offender by his shirt and yelled at him in a courthouse hallway.
Pascual Gonzalez, of Roxbury, NJ, was awaiting sentencing on Monday for sexually abusing the woman’s 14-year-old daughter when the mother attacked him. She was eventually restrained by deputies, the Daily Record reported. The woman told authorities that she heard Gonzalez comment that her daughter was “good.” Gonzalez denied that he made the remark and told officers that he planned to press charges against the woman.
This isn’t the first time the mom has attacked Gonzalez. On Aug. 2, after she found out that her daughter had been sexually abused, she allegedly attacked Gonzalez with a baseball bat. She is not being publicly named in order to protect her daughter’s identity.
Gonzalez, a 39-year-old father of four, had pleaded guilty in January to sexually assaulting the woman’s daughter over a three-month period. He also inappropriately touched her friend, a 15-year-old girl. On Monday, Gonzalez — a volunteer baseball and basketball coach — was sentenced to five years in prison.
[url]http://www.minortroubles.com/2009/05/19/mom-attacks-sex-offender-at-courthouse/[/URL]
____________________________________
Parents sue in school sex case
By Jason M. Rodriguez
BOLIVIA, N.C. -- The parents of a former West Brunswick High School student say school officials ignored reports that their daughter and her math teacher were sharing massages and spending time in his locked classroom with the lights off, according to a lawsuit.
The Supply, N.C., couple filed a civil lawsuit Tuesday in Brunswick County Superior Court against the Brunswick County Board of Education and 16-year advanced math teacher and coach David Hamilton Arrowood, now 50.
The lawsuit claims their daughter and Arrowood eventually shared a sexual relationship on and off school grounds between October 2005 and April 2006, and the school system - despite having dated and signed witness reports - did nothing to prevent it.
The suit also claims the school system tried to withhold those reports and Arrowood's personnel file from police, stating it conducted its own interviews and found no wrongdoing.
Arrowood has since been dismissed.
A lawyer for the school system said Brunswick County Schools Superintendent Katie McGee never intended to impede a criminal investigation.
This is the second time in three months the Brunswick County Board of Education has been sued by parents who claim the board did nothing to prevent their daughters from having inappropriate relationships with teachers at two high schools.
In the other case, the 16-year-old student married her former track coach, 40-year-old Brenton Wuchae.
McGee released the following statement Wednesday:
"We acknowledge that a lawsuit has been filed against the Board of Education, and former employee David Arrowood by [the parents of the student]. Mr. Arrowood was suspended by school officials from his professional duties on April 12, 2006 and ordered not to be on any school property thereafter. The Board of Education took official action on June 20, 2006 and dismissed David Arrowood. A defense to the lawsuit will be provided by the North Carolina School Board's Trust."
She said the same law firm representing the board in a similar case - Raleigh-based Tharrington Smith LLP - was assigned by the board's trust in this case.
McGee said late Wednesday she had yet to consult with attorneys in order to respond to questions about the lawsuit.
Reached late Wednesday, Kathleen Tanner, a lawyer for the firm, said, "The school system will be filing a response to the lawsuit within six to eight weeks. The school system will look forward to having the lawsuit heard and resolved in court."
The lawsuit asks for more than $20,000 in compensatory and punitive damages based on four claims of relief: intentional infliction of emotional distress; negligent infliction of emotional distress; negligent supervision and retention; and assault and battery.
Arrowood was convicted in February of seven counts each of each of sex offense with a student by school personnel and of indecent liberties with a student by school personnel. He was sentenced to a prison term of between 10 and 12 months in the N.C. Department of Corrections. He pleaded guilty to the charges in July 2006.
The suit outlines the details of the relationship Arrowood had with the then-17-year-old Supply, N.C., girl.
The Sun News does not print the names of sex offense victims and is not printing the names of her parents to protect her identity.
Arrowood had worked at West Brunswick since 1990, where he taught advanced-placement math and was an assistant football coach at the school. He and the girl's relationship dates back to October 2005 when, the suit alleges, he inappropriately touched the girl. In November, she went to Arrowood's house and "engaged in a sexual act" with him.
Those acts continued on and off campus through April 2006. During that time, the two e-mailed and wrote letters to each other. He gave her lingerie, clothing, money and books, according to the suit. The suit claims he proposed to her and planned to marry her after she finished two years of college and he divorced his wife.
The parents say a number of teachers, who gave signed and dated statements to school officials, saw him touch and brush her hair and saw her massage his shoulders, according to the lawsuit. Witnesses also watched as the two locked his classroom door and turned out the lights, the suit said.
On April 12, 2006, two assistant principals found Arrowood's classroom doors locked and his lights off, the suit states. The principals said they found Arrowood and the student "engaging in a sexual act," according to the suit.
Later that night, the school resource officer notified the Brunswick County Sheriff's Office that an incident between a teacher and a student occurred.
By 6:30 p.m., the resource officer called the sheriff's office to tell them the investigation would be handled internally and that police did not have to respond, according to the suit.
School officials, not specified in the suit, "advised the police that they had already conducted interviews of [the student] and Arrowood and that nothing inappropriate had occurred," according to the lawsuit.
A detective, not named in the suit, persisted with the investigation despite the school's request to keep the matter internal, according to the suit. Then-Principal James Jordan reportedly was told to withhold witness statements and the personnel file of Arrowood by McGee, according to the suit. The threat of an arrest for interfering with a criminal investigation prompted Jordan to hand over the records, the suit said.
Raleigh attorney Robert Tatum is representing the parents in the case.
____________________________________
Parents sue in school sex case
By Jason M. Rodriguez
BOLIVIA, N.C. -- The parents of a former West Brunswick High School student say school officials ignored reports that their daughter and her math teacher were sharing massages and spending time in his locked classroom with the lights off, according to a lawsuit.
The Supply, N.C., couple filed a civil lawsuit Tuesday in Brunswick County Superior Court against the Brunswick County Board of Education and 16-year advanced math teacher and coach David Hamilton Arrowood, now 50.
The lawsuit claims their daughter and Arrowood eventually shared a sexual relationship on and off school grounds between October 2005 and April 2006, and the school system - despite having dated and signed witness reports - did nothing to prevent it.
The suit also claims the school system tried to withhold those reports and Arrowood's personnel file from police, stating it conducted its own interviews and found no wrongdoing.
Arrowood has since been dismissed.
A lawyer for the school system said Brunswick County Schools Superintendent Katie McGee never intended to impede a criminal investigation.
This is the second time in three months the Brunswick County Board of Education has been sued by parents who claim the board did nothing to prevent their daughters from having inappropriate relationships with teachers at two high schools.
In the other case, the 16-year-old student married her former track coach, 40-year-old Brenton Wuchae.
McGee released the following statement Wednesday:
"We acknowledge that a lawsuit has been filed against the Board of Education, and former employee David Arrowood by [the parents of the student]. Mr. Arrowood was suspended by school officials from his professional duties on April 12, 2006 and ordered not to be on any school property thereafter. The Board of Education took official action on June 20, 2006 and dismissed David Arrowood. A defense to the lawsuit will be provided by the North Carolina School Board's Trust."
She said the same law firm representing the board in a similar case - Raleigh-based Tharrington Smith LLP - was assigned by the board's trust in this case.
McGee said late Wednesday she had yet to consult with attorneys in order to respond to questions about the lawsuit.
Reached late Wednesday, Kathleen Tanner, a lawyer for the firm, said, "The school system will be filing a response to the lawsuit within six to eight weeks. The school system will look forward to having the lawsuit heard and resolved in court."
The lawsuit asks for more than $20,000 in compensatory and punitive damages based on four claims of relief: intentional infliction of emotional distress; negligent infliction of emotional distress; negligent supervision and retention; and assault and battery.
Arrowood was convicted in February of seven counts each of each of sex offense with a student by school personnel and of indecent liberties with a student by school personnel. He was sentenced to a prison term of between 10 and 12 months in the N.C. Department of Corrections. He pleaded guilty to the charges in July 2006.
The suit outlines the details of the relationship Arrowood had with the then-17-year-old Supply, N.C., girl.
The Sun News does not print the names of sex offense victims and is not printing the names of her parents to protect her identity.
Arrowood had worked at West Brunswick since 1990, where he taught advanced-placement math and was an assistant football coach at the school. He and the girl's relationship dates back to October 2005 when, the suit alleges, he inappropriately touched the girl. In November, she went to Arrowood's house and "engaged in a sexual act" with him.
Those acts continued on and off campus through April 2006. During that time, the two e-mailed and wrote letters to each other. He gave her lingerie, clothing, money and books, according to the suit. The suit claims he proposed to her and planned to marry her after she finished two years of college and he divorced his wife.
The parents say a number of teachers, who gave signed and dated statements to school officials, saw him touch and brush her hair and saw her massage his shoulders, according to the lawsuit. Witnesses also watched as the two locked his classroom door and turned out the lights, the suit said.
On April 12, 2006, two assistant principals found Arrowood's classroom doors locked and his lights off, the suit states. The principals said they found Arrowood and the student "engaging in a sexual act," according to the suit.
Later that night, the school resource officer notified the Brunswick County Sheriff's Office that an incident between a teacher and a student occurred.
By 6:30 p.m., the resource officer called the sheriff's office to tell them the investigation would be handled internally and that police did not have to respond, according to the suit.
School officials, not specified in the suit, "advised the police that they had already conducted interviews of [the student] and Arrowood and that nothing inappropriate had occurred," according to the lawsuit.
A detective, not named in the suit, persisted with the investigation despite the school's request to keep the matter internal, according to the suit. Then-Principal James Jordan reportedly was told to withhold witness statements and the personnel file of Arrowood by McGee, according to the suit. The threat of an arrest for interfering with a criminal investigation prompted Jordan to hand over the records, the suit said.
Raleigh attorney Robert Tatum is representing the parents in the case.
crimsontide06
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Re: US Student and Parent Kissing Prank goes Viral
The vid scares me lol.... The thing that scares me the most is the mom who was on the floor with her kid....really??
The vid scares me lol.... The thing that scares me the most is the mom who was on the floor with her kid....really??
islamica
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Re: US Student and Parent Kissing Prank goes Viral
AP: Sexual misconduct plagues US schools
By MARTHA IRVINE and ROBERT TANNER - Oct 20, 2007
The young teacher hung his head, avoiding eye contact. Yes, he had touched a fifth-grader's breast during recess. "I guess it was just lust of the flesh," he told his boss.
That got Gary C. Lindsey fired from his first teaching job in Oelwein, Iowa. But it didn't end his career. He taught for decades in Illinois and Iowa, fending off at least a half-dozen more abuse accusations.
When he finally surrendered his teaching license in 2004 — 40 years after that first little girl came forward — it wasn't a principal or a state agency that ended his career. It was one persistent victim and her parents.
Lindsey's case is just a small example of a widespread problem in American schools: sexual misconduct by the very teachers who are supposed to be nurturing the nation's children.
Students in America's schools are groped. They're raped. They're pursued, seduced and think they're in love.
An Associated Press investigation found more than 2,500 cases over five years in which educators were punished for actions from bizarre to sadistic.
There are 3 million public school teachers nationwide, most devoted to their work. Yet the number of abusive educators — nearly three for every school day — speaks to a much larger problem in a system that is stacked against victims.
Most of the abuse never gets reported. Those cases reported often end with no action. Cases investigated sometimes can't be proven, and many abusers have several victims.
And no one — not the schools, not the courts, not the state or federal governments — has found a surefire way to keep molesting teachers out of classrooms.
Those are the findings of an AP investigation in which reporters sought disciplinary records in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The result is an unprecedented national look at the scope of sex offenses by educators — the very definition of breach of trust.
The seven-month investigation found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were revoked, denied, surrendered or sanctioned from 2001 through 2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct.
Young people were the victims in at least 1,801 of the cases, and more than 80 percent of those were students. At least half the educators who were punished by their states also were convicted of crimes related to their misconduct.
The findings draw obvious comparisons to sex abuse scandals in other institutions, among them the Roman Catholic Church. A review by America's Catholic bishops found that about 4,400 of 110,000 priests were accused of molesting minors from 1950 through 2002.
graphic shows findings of AP investigation on school teacher abuses, includes a map of abuses, statistics on victims and perpetrators
Clergy abuse is part of the national consciousness after a string of highly publicized cases. But until now, there's been little sense of the extent of educator abuse.
Beyond the horror of individual crimes, the larger shame is that the institutions that govern education have only sporadically addressed a problem that's been apparent for years.
"From my own experience — this could get me in trouble — I think every single school district in the nation has at least one perpetrator. At least one," says Mary Jo McGrath, a California lawyer who has spent 30 years investigating abuse and misconduct in schools. "It doesn't matter if it's urban or rural or suburban."
One report mandated by Congress estimated that as many as 4.5 million students, out of roughly 50 million in American schools, are subject to sexual misconduct by an employee of a school sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade. That figure includes verbal harassment that's sexual in nature.
Jennah Bramow, one of Lindsey's accusers in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, wonders why there isn't more outrage.
"You're supposed to be able to send your kids to school knowing that they're going to be safe," says Bramow, now 20. While other victims accepted settlement deals and signed confidentiality agreements, she sued her city's schools for failing to protect her and others from Lindsey — and won. Only then was Lindsey's teaching license finally revoked.
graphic shows findings of AP investigation on school teacher abuses, includes a map of abuses, statistics on victims and perpetrators
As an 8-year-old elementary-school student, Bramow told how Lindsey forced her hand on what she called his "pee-pee."
"How did you know it was his pee-pee?" an interviewer at St. Luke's Child Protection Center in Cedar Rapids asked Jennah in a videotape, taken in 1995.
"'Cause I felt something?" said Jennah, then a fidgety girl with long, dark hair.
"How did it feel?" the investigator asked.
"Bumpy," Jennah replied. She drew a picture that showed how Lindsey made her touch him on the zipper area of his pants.
Lindsey, now 68, refused multiple requests for an interview. "It never occurs to you people that some people don't want their past opened back up," he said when an AP reporter approached him at his home outside Cedar Rapids and asked questions.
That past, according to evidence presented in the Bramow's civil case, included accusations from students and parents along with reprimands from principals that were filed away, explained away and ultimately ignored until 1995, when accusations from Bramow and two other girls forced his early retirement. Even then, he kept his teaching license until the Bramows took the case public and filed a complaint with the state.
Like Lindsey, the perpetrators that the AP found are everyday educators — teachers, school psychologists, principals and superintendents among them. They're often popular and recognized for excellence and, in nearly nine out of 10 cases, they're male. While some abused students in school, others were cited for sexual misconduct after hours that didn't necessarily involve a kid from their classes, such as viewing or distributing child pornography.
They include:
• Joseph E. Hayes, a former principal in East St. Louis, Ill. DNA evidence in a civil case determined that he impregnated a 14-year-old student. Never charged criminally, his license was suspended in 2003. He has ignored an order to surrender it permanently.
• Donald M. Landrum, a high school teacher in Polk County, N.C. His bosses warned him not to meet with female students behind closed doors. They put a glass window in his office door, but Landrum papered over it. Police later found pornography and condoms in his office and alleged that he was about to have sex with a female student. His license was revoked in 2005.
• Rebecca A. Boicelli, a former teacher in Redwood City, Calif. She conceived a child with a 16-year-old former student then went on maternity leave in 2004 while police investigated. She was hired to teach in a nearby school district; board members said police hadn't told them about the investigation.
The overwhelming majority of cases the AP examined involved teachers in public schools. Private school teachers rarely turn up because many are not required to have a teaching license and, even when they have one, disciplinary actions are typically handled within the school.
Two of the nation's major teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, each denounced sex abuse while emphasizing that educators' rights also must be taken into account.
"Students must be protected from sexual predators and abuse, and teachers must be protected from false accusations," said NEA President Reg Weaver, who refused to be interviewed and instead released a two-paragraph statement.
Kathy Buzad of the AFT said that "if there's one incident of sexual misconduct between a teacher and a student that's one too many."
The United States has grown more sympathetic to victims of sex abuse over recent decades, particularly when it comes to young people. Laws that protect children from abusers bear the names of young victims. Police have made pursuing Internet predators a priority. People convicted of abuse typically face tough sentences and registry as sex offenders.
Even so, sexually abusive teachers continue to take advantage, and there are several reasons why.
For one, many Americans deny the problem, and even treat the abuse with misplaced fascination. Popular media reports trumpet relationships between attractive female teachers and male students.
"It's dealt with in a salacious manner with late-night comedians saying 'What 14-year-old boy wouldn't want to have sex with his teacher?' It trivializes the whole issue," says Robert Shoop, a professor of educational administration at Kansas State University who has written a book aimed at helping school districts identify and deal with sexual misconduct.
"In other cases, it's reported as if this is some deviant who crawled into the school district — 'and now that they're gone, everything's OK.' But it's much more prevalent than people would think."
The AP investigation found efforts to stop individual offenders but, overall, a deeply entrenched resistance toward recognizing and fighting abuse. It starts in school hallways, where fellow teachers look away or feel powerless to help. School administrators make behind-the-scenes deals to avoid lawsuits and other trouble. And in state capitals and Congress, lawmakers shy from tough state punishments or any cohesive national policy for fear of disparaging a vital profession.
That only enables rogue teachers, and puts kids who aren't likely to be believed in a tough spot.
In case after case the AP examined, accusations of inappropriate behavior were dismissed. One girl in Mansfield, Ohio, complained about a sexual assault by teacher Donald Coots and got expelled. It was only when a second girl, years later, brought a similar complaint against the same teacher that he was punished.
And that second girl also was ostracized by the school community and ultimately left town.
Unless there's a videotape of a teacher involved with a child, everyone wants to believe the authority figure, says Wayne Promisel, a retired Virginia detective who has investigated many sex abuse cases.
He and others who track the problem reiterated one point repeatedly during the AP investigation: Very few abusers get caught.
They point to several academic studies estimating that only about one in 10 victimized children report sexual abuse of any kind to someone who can do something about it.
Teachers, administrators and even parents frequently don't, or won't, recognize the signs that a crime is taking place.
"They can't see what's in front of their face. Not unlike a kid in an alcoholic family, who'll say 'My family is great,'" says McGrath, the California lawyer and investigator who now trains entire school systems how to recognize what she calls the unmistakable "red flags" of misconduct.
In Hamburg, Pa., in 2002, those "red flags" should have been clear. A student skipped classes every day to spend time with one teacher. He gave her gifts and rides in his car. She sat on his lap. The bond ran so deep that the student got chastised repeatedly — even suspended once for being late and absent so often. But there were no questions for the teacher.
Heather Kline was 12, a girl with a broad smile and blond hair pulled back tight. Teacher Troy Mansfield had cultivated her since she was in his third-grade class.
"Kids, like, idolized me because they thought I was, like, cool because he paid more attention to me," says Kline, now 18, sitting at her mother's kitchen table, sorting through a file of old poems and cards from Mansfield. "I was just like really comfortable. I could tell him anything."
He never pushed her, just raised the stakes, bit by bit — a comment about how good she looked, a gift, a hug.
She was sure she was in love.
By winter of seventh grade, he was sneaking her off in his car for an hour of sex, dropping in on her weekly baby-sitting duties, e-mailing about what clothes she should wear, about his sexual fantasies, about marriage and children.
Mansfield finally got caught by the girl's mother, and his own words convicted him. At his criminal trial in 2004, Heather read his e-mails and instant messages aloud, from declarations of true love to explicit references to past sex. He's serving up to 31 years in state prison.
The growing use of e-mails and text messages is leaving a trail that investigators and prosecutors can use to prove an intimate relationship when other evidence is hard to find.
Even then, many in the community find it difficult to accept that a predator is in their midst. When these cases break, defendants often portray the students as seducers or false accusers. However, every investigator questioned said that is largely a misconception.
"I've been involved in several hundred investigations," says Martin Bates, an assistant superintendent in a Salt Lake City school district. "I think I've seen that just a couple of times ... where a teacher is being pursued by a student."
Too often, problem teachers are allowed to leave quietly. That can mean future abuse for another student and another school district.
"They might deal with it internally, suspending the person or having the person move on. So their license is never investigated," says Charol Shakeshaft, a leading expert in teacher sex abuse who heads the educational leadership department at Virginia Commonwealth University.
It's a dynamic so common it has its own nicknames — "passing the trash" or the "mobile molester."
Laws in several states require that even an allegation of sexual misconduct be reported to the state departments that oversee teacher licenses. But there's no consistent enforcement, so such laws are easy to ignore.
School officials fear public embarrassment as much as the perpetrators do, Shakeshaft says. They want to avoid the fallout from going up against a popular teacher. They also don't want to get sued by teachers or victims, and they don't want to face a challenge from a strong union.
In the Iowa case, Lindsey agreed to leave without fighting when his bosses kept the reason for his departure confidential. The decades' worth of allegations against him would have stayed secret, if not for Bramow.
Across the country, such deals and lack of information-sharing allow abusive teachers to jump state lines, even when one school does put a stop to the abuse.
While some schools and states have been aggressive about investigating problem teachers and publicizing it when they're found, others were hesitant to share details of cases with the AP — Alabama and Mississippi among the more resistant. Maine, the only state that gave the AP no disciplinary information, has a law that keeps offending teachers' cases secret.
Meanwhile, the reasons given for punishing hundreds of educators, including many in California, were so vague there was no way to tell why they'd been punished, until further investigation by AP reporters revealed it was sexual misconduct.
And in Hawaii, no educators were disciplined by the state in the five years the AP examined, even though some teachers there were serving sentences for various sex crimes during that time. They technically remained teachers, even behind bars.
Elsewhere, there have been fitful steps toward catching errant teachers that may be having some effect. The AP found the number of state actions against sexually abusive teachers rose steadily, to a high of 649 in 2005.
More states now require background checks on teachers, fingerprinting and mandatory reporting of abuse, though there are still loopholes and a lack of coordination among districts and states.
U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the last 20 years on civil rights and sex discrimination have opened schools up to potentially huge financial punishments for abuses, which has driven some schools to act.
And the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification keeps a list of educators who've been punished for any reason, but only shares the names among state agencies.
The uncoordinated system that's developed means some teachers still fall through the cracks. Aaron M. Brevik is a case in point.
Brevik was a teacher at an elementary school in Warren, Mich., until he was accused of using a camera hidden in a gym bag to secretly film boys in locker rooms and showers. He also faced charges that he recorded himself molesting a boy while the child slept.
Found guilty of criminal sexual conduct, Brevik is now serving a five- to 20-year prison sentence and lost his Michigan license in 2005.
What Michigan officials apparently didn't know when they hired him was that Brevik's teaching license in Minnesota had been permanently suspended in 2001 after he allegedly invited two male minors to stay with him in a hotel room. He was principal of an elementary school in southeastern Minnesota at the time.
"I tell you what, they never go away. They just blend a little better," says Steve Janosko, a prosecutor in Ocean County, N.J., who handled the case of a former high school teacher and football coach, Nicholas J. Arminio.
Arminio surrendered his New Jersey teaching license in 1994 after two female students separately accused him of inappropriate touching. The state of Maryland didn't know that when he applied for teaching credentials and took a job at a high school in Baltimore County. He eventually resigned and lost that license, too.
Even so, until this month, he was coaching football at another Baltimore County high school in a job that does not require a teaching license. After the AP started asking questions, he was fired.
Victims also face consequences when teachers are punished.
In Pennsylvania, after news of teacher Troy Mansfield's arrest hit, girls called Kline, his 12-year-old victim, a "****" to her face. A teacher called her a "vixen." Friends stopped talking to her. Kids no longer sat with her at lunch.
Her abuser, meanwhile, had been a popular teacher and football coach.
So, between rumors that she was pregnant or doing drugs and her own panic attacks and depression, Kline bounced between schools. At 16, she ran away to Nashville.
"I didn't have my childhood," says Kline, who's back home now, working at a grocery cash register and hoping to get her GED so she can go to nursing school. "He had me so matured at so young.
"I remember going from little baby dolls to just being an adult."
The courts dealt her a final insult. A federal judge dismissed her civil suit against the school, saying administrators had no obligation to protect her from a predatory teacher since officials were unaware of the abuse, despite what the court called widespread "unsubstantiated rumors" in the school. The family is appealing.
In Iowa, the state Supreme Court made the opposite ruling in the Bramow case, deciding she and her parents could sue the Cedar Rapids schools for failing to stop Lindsey.
Bramow, now a young mother who waits tables for a living, won a $20,000 judgment. But Lindsey was never criminally charged due to what the former county prosecutor deemed insufficient evidence.
Arthur Sensor, the former superintendent in Oelwein, Iowa, who vividly recalls pressuring Lindsey to quit on Feb. 18, 1964, regrets that he didn't do more to stop him back then.
Now, he says, he'd call the police.
"He promised me he wouldn't do it again — that he had learned. And he was a young man, a beginning teacher, had a young wife, a young child," Sensor, now 86 years old, said during testimony at the Bramows' civil trial.
"I wanted to believe him, and I did."
AP: Sexual misconduct plagues US schools
By MARTHA IRVINE and ROBERT TANNER - Oct 20, 2007
The young teacher hung his head, avoiding eye contact. Yes, he had touched a fifth-grader's breast during recess. "I guess it was just lust of the flesh," he told his boss.
That got Gary C. Lindsey fired from his first teaching job in Oelwein, Iowa. But it didn't end his career. He taught for decades in Illinois and Iowa, fending off at least a half-dozen more abuse accusations.
When he finally surrendered his teaching license in 2004 — 40 years after that first little girl came forward — it wasn't a principal or a state agency that ended his career. It was one persistent victim and her parents.
Lindsey's case is just a small example of a widespread problem in American schools: sexual misconduct by the very teachers who are supposed to be nurturing the nation's children.
Students in America's schools are groped. They're raped. They're pursued, seduced and think they're in love.
An Associated Press investigation found more than 2,500 cases over five years in which educators were punished for actions from bizarre to sadistic.
There are 3 million public school teachers nationwide, most devoted to their work. Yet the number of abusive educators — nearly three for every school day — speaks to a much larger problem in a system that is stacked against victims.
Most of the abuse never gets reported. Those cases reported often end with no action. Cases investigated sometimes can't be proven, and many abusers have several victims.
And no one — not the schools, not the courts, not the state or federal governments — has found a surefire way to keep molesting teachers out of classrooms.
Those are the findings of an AP investigation in which reporters sought disciplinary records in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The result is an unprecedented national look at the scope of sex offenses by educators — the very definition of breach of trust.
The seven-month investigation found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were revoked, denied, surrendered or sanctioned from 2001 through 2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct.
Young people were the victims in at least 1,801 of the cases, and more than 80 percent of those were students. At least half the educators who were punished by their states also were convicted of crimes related to their misconduct.
The findings draw obvious comparisons to sex abuse scandals in other institutions, among them the Roman Catholic Church. A review by America's Catholic bishops found that about 4,400 of 110,000 priests were accused of molesting minors from 1950 through 2002.
graphic shows findings of AP investigation on school teacher abuses, includes a map of abuses, statistics on victims and perpetrators
Clergy abuse is part of the national consciousness after a string of highly publicized cases. But until now, there's been little sense of the extent of educator abuse.
Beyond the horror of individual crimes, the larger shame is that the institutions that govern education have only sporadically addressed a problem that's been apparent for years.
"From my own experience — this could get me in trouble — I think every single school district in the nation has at least one perpetrator. At least one," says Mary Jo McGrath, a California lawyer who has spent 30 years investigating abuse and misconduct in schools. "It doesn't matter if it's urban or rural or suburban."
One report mandated by Congress estimated that as many as 4.5 million students, out of roughly 50 million in American schools, are subject to sexual misconduct by an employee of a school sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade. That figure includes verbal harassment that's sexual in nature.
Jennah Bramow, one of Lindsey's accusers in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, wonders why there isn't more outrage.
"You're supposed to be able to send your kids to school knowing that they're going to be safe," says Bramow, now 20. While other victims accepted settlement deals and signed confidentiality agreements, she sued her city's schools for failing to protect her and others from Lindsey — and won. Only then was Lindsey's teaching license finally revoked.
graphic shows findings of AP investigation on school teacher abuses, includes a map of abuses, statistics on victims and perpetrators
As an 8-year-old elementary-school student, Bramow told how Lindsey forced her hand on what she called his "pee-pee."
"How did you know it was his pee-pee?" an interviewer at St. Luke's Child Protection Center in Cedar Rapids asked Jennah in a videotape, taken in 1995.
"'Cause I felt something?" said Jennah, then a fidgety girl with long, dark hair.
"How did it feel?" the investigator asked.
"Bumpy," Jennah replied. She drew a picture that showed how Lindsey made her touch him on the zipper area of his pants.
Lindsey, now 68, refused multiple requests for an interview. "It never occurs to you people that some people don't want their past opened back up," he said when an AP reporter approached him at his home outside Cedar Rapids and asked questions.
That past, according to evidence presented in the Bramow's civil case, included accusations from students and parents along with reprimands from principals that were filed away, explained away and ultimately ignored until 1995, when accusations from Bramow and two other girls forced his early retirement. Even then, he kept his teaching license until the Bramows took the case public and filed a complaint with the state.
Like Lindsey, the perpetrators that the AP found are everyday educators — teachers, school psychologists, principals and superintendents among them. They're often popular and recognized for excellence and, in nearly nine out of 10 cases, they're male. While some abused students in school, others were cited for sexual misconduct after hours that didn't necessarily involve a kid from their classes, such as viewing or distributing child pornography.
They include:
• Joseph E. Hayes, a former principal in East St. Louis, Ill. DNA evidence in a civil case determined that he impregnated a 14-year-old student. Never charged criminally, his license was suspended in 2003. He has ignored an order to surrender it permanently.
• Donald M. Landrum, a high school teacher in Polk County, N.C. His bosses warned him not to meet with female students behind closed doors. They put a glass window in his office door, but Landrum papered over it. Police later found pornography and condoms in his office and alleged that he was about to have sex with a female student. His license was revoked in 2005.
• Rebecca A. Boicelli, a former teacher in Redwood City, Calif. She conceived a child with a 16-year-old former student then went on maternity leave in 2004 while police investigated. She was hired to teach in a nearby school district; board members said police hadn't told them about the investigation.
The overwhelming majority of cases the AP examined involved teachers in public schools. Private school teachers rarely turn up because many are not required to have a teaching license and, even when they have one, disciplinary actions are typically handled within the school.
Two of the nation's major teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, each denounced sex abuse while emphasizing that educators' rights also must be taken into account.
"Students must be protected from sexual predators and abuse, and teachers must be protected from false accusations," said NEA President Reg Weaver, who refused to be interviewed and instead released a two-paragraph statement.
Kathy Buzad of the AFT said that "if there's one incident of sexual misconduct between a teacher and a student that's one too many."
The United States has grown more sympathetic to victims of sex abuse over recent decades, particularly when it comes to young people. Laws that protect children from abusers bear the names of young victims. Police have made pursuing Internet predators a priority. People convicted of abuse typically face tough sentences and registry as sex offenders.
Even so, sexually abusive teachers continue to take advantage, and there are several reasons why.
For one, many Americans deny the problem, and even treat the abuse with misplaced fascination. Popular media reports trumpet relationships between attractive female teachers and male students.
"It's dealt with in a salacious manner with late-night comedians saying 'What 14-year-old boy wouldn't want to have sex with his teacher?' It trivializes the whole issue," says Robert Shoop, a professor of educational administration at Kansas State University who has written a book aimed at helping school districts identify and deal with sexual misconduct.
"In other cases, it's reported as if this is some deviant who crawled into the school district — 'and now that they're gone, everything's OK.' But it's much more prevalent than people would think."
The AP investigation found efforts to stop individual offenders but, overall, a deeply entrenched resistance toward recognizing and fighting abuse. It starts in school hallways, where fellow teachers look away or feel powerless to help. School administrators make behind-the-scenes deals to avoid lawsuits and other trouble. And in state capitals and Congress, lawmakers shy from tough state punishments or any cohesive national policy for fear of disparaging a vital profession.
That only enables rogue teachers, and puts kids who aren't likely to be believed in a tough spot.
In case after case the AP examined, accusations of inappropriate behavior were dismissed. One girl in Mansfield, Ohio, complained about a sexual assault by teacher Donald Coots and got expelled. It was only when a second girl, years later, brought a similar complaint against the same teacher that he was punished.
And that second girl also was ostracized by the school community and ultimately left town.
Unless there's a videotape of a teacher involved with a child, everyone wants to believe the authority figure, says Wayne Promisel, a retired Virginia detective who has investigated many sex abuse cases.
He and others who track the problem reiterated one point repeatedly during the AP investigation: Very few abusers get caught.
They point to several academic studies estimating that only about one in 10 victimized children report sexual abuse of any kind to someone who can do something about it.
Teachers, administrators and even parents frequently don't, or won't, recognize the signs that a crime is taking place.
"They can't see what's in front of their face. Not unlike a kid in an alcoholic family, who'll say 'My family is great,'" says McGrath, the California lawyer and investigator who now trains entire school systems how to recognize what she calls the unmistakable "red flags" of misconduct.
In Hamburg, Pa., in 2002, those "red flags" should have been clear. A student skipped classes every day to spend time with one teacher. He gave her gifts and rides in his car. She sat on his lap. The bond ran so deep that the student got chastised repeatedly — even suspended once for being late and absent so often. But there were no questions for the teacher.
Heather Kline was 12, a girl with a broad smile and blond hair pulled back tight. Teacher Troy Mansfield had cultivated her since she was in his third-grade class.
"Kids, like, idolized me because they thought I was, like, cool because he paid more attention to me," says Kline, now 18, sitting at her mother's kitchen table, sorting through a file of old poems and cards from Mansfield. "I was just like really comfortable. I could tell him anything."
He never pushed her, just raised the stakes, bit by bit — a comment about how good she looked, a gift, a hug.
She was sure she was in love.
By winter of seventh grade, he was sneaking her off in his car for an hour of sex, dropping in on her weekly baby-sitting duties, e-mailing about what clothes she should wear, about his sexual fantasies, about marriage and children.
Mansfield finally got caught by the girl's mother, and his own words convicted him. At his criminal trial in 2004, Heather read his e-mails and instant messages aloud, from declarations of true love to explicit references to past sex. He's serving up to 31 years in state prison.
The growing use of e-mails and text messages is leaving a trail that investigators and prosecutors can use to prove an intimate relationship when other evidence is hard to find.
Even then, many in the community find it difficult to accept that a predator is in their midst. When these cases break, defendants often portray the students as seducers or false accusers. However, every investigator questioned said that is largely a misconception.
"I've been involved in several hundred investigations," says Martin Bates, an assistant superintendent in a Salt Lake City school district. "I think I've seen that just a couple of times ... where a teacher is being pursued by a student."
Too often, problem teachers are allowed to leave quietly. That can mean future abuse for another student and another school district.
"They might deal with it internally, suspending the person or having the person move on. So their license is never investigated," says Charol Shakeshaft, a leading expert in teacher sex abuse who heads the educational leadership department at Virginia Commonwealth University.
It's a dynamic so common it has its own nicknames — "passing the trash" or the "mobile molester."
Laws in several states require that even an allegation of sexual misconduct be reported to the state departments that oversee teacher licenses. But there's no consistent enforcement, so such laws are easy to ignore.
School officials fear public embarrassment as much as the perpetrators do, Shakeshaft says. They want to avoid the fallout from going up against a popular teacher. They also don't want to get sued by teachers or victims, and they don't want to face a challenge from a strong union.
In the Iowa case, Lindsey agreed to leave without fighting when his bosses kept the reason for his departure confidential. The decades' worth of allegations against him would have stayed secret, if not for Bramow.
Across the country, such deals and lack of information-sharing allow abusive teachers to jump state lines, even when one school does put a stop to the abuse.
While some schools and states have been aggressive about investigating problem teachers and publicizing it when they're found, others were hesitant to share details of cases with the AP — Alabama and Mississippi among the more resistant. Maine, the only state that gave the AP no disciplinary information, has a law that keeps offending teachers' cases secret.
Meanwhile, the reasons given for punishing hundreds of educators, including many in California, were so vague there was no way to tell why they'd been punished, until further investigation by AP reporters revealed it was sexual misconduct.
And in Hawaii, no educators were disciplined by the state in the five years the AP examined, even though some teachers there were serving sentences for various sex crimes during that time. They technically remained teachers, even behind bars.
Elsewhere, there have been fitful steps toward catching errant teachers that may be having some effect. The AP found the number of state actions against sexually abusive teachers rose steadily, to a high of 649 in 2005.
More states now require background checks on teachers, fingerprinting and mandatory reporting of abuse, though there are still loopholes and a lack of coordination among districts and states.
U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the last 20 years on civil rights and sex discrimination have opened schools up to potentially huge financial punishments for abuses, which has driven some schools to act.
And the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification keeps a list of educators who've been punished for any reason, but only shares the names among state agencies.
The uncoordinated system that's developed means some teachers still fall through the cracks. Aaron M. Brevik is a case in point.
Brevik was a teacher at an elementary school in Warren, Mich., until he was accused of using a camera hidden in a gym bag to secretly film boys in locker rooms and showers. He also faced charges that he recorded himself molesting a boy while the child slept.
Found guilty of criminal sexual conduct, Brevik is now serving a five- to 20-year prison sentence and lost his Michigan license in 2005.
What Michigan officials apparently didn't know when they hired him was that Brevik's teaching license in Minnesota had been permanently suspended in 2001 after he allegedly invited two male minors to stay with him in a hotel room. He was principal of an elementary school in southeastern Minnesota at the time.
"I tell you what, they never go away. They just blend a little better," says Steve Janosko, a prosecutor in Ocean County, N.J., who handled the case of a former high school teacher and football coach, Nicholas J. Arminio.
Arminio surrendered his New Jersey teaching license in 1994 after two female students separately accused him of inappropriate touching. The state of Maryland didn't know that when he applied for teaching credentials and took a job at a high school in Baltimore County. He eventually resigned and lost that license, too.
Even so, until this month, he was coaching football at another Baltimore County high school in a job that does not require a teaching license. After the AP started asking questions, he was fired.
Victims also face consequences when teachers are punished.
In Pennsylvania, after news of teacher Troy Mansfield's arrest hit, girls called Kline, his 12-year-old victim, a "****" to her face. A teacher called her a "vixen." Friends stopped talking to her. Kids no longer sat with her at lunch.
Her abuser, meanwhile, had been a popular teacher and football coach.
So, between rumors that she was pregnant or doing drugs and her own panic attacks and depression, Kline bounced between schools. At 16, she ran away to Nashville.
"I didn't have my childhood," says Kline, who's back home now, working at a grocery cash register and hoping to get her GED so she can go to nursing school. "He had me so matured at so young.
"I remember going from little baby dolls to just being an adult."
The courts dealt her a final insult. A federal judge dismissed her civil suit against the school, saying administrators had no obligation to protect her from a predatory teacher since officials were unaware of the abuse, despite what the court called widespread "unsubstantiated rumors" in the school. The family is appealing.
In Iowa, the state Supreme Court made the opposite ruling in the Bramow case, deciding she and her parents could sue the Cedar Rapids schools for failing to stop Lindsey.
Bramow, now a young mother who waits tables for a living, won a $20,000 judgment. But Lindsey was never criminally charged due to what the former county prosecutor deemed insufficient evidence.
Arthur Sensor, the former superintendent in Oelwein, Iowa, who vividly recalls pressuring Lindsey to quit on Feb. 18, 1964, regrets that he didn't do more to stop him back then.
Now, he says, he'd call the police.
"He promised me he wouldn't do it again — that he had learned. And he was a young man, a beginning teacher, had a young wife, a young child," Sensor, now 86 years old, said during testimony at the Bramows' civil trial.
"I wanted to believe him, and I did."