When Schools Get It Wrong and Parents Get It Right

Moms, remember to stay vigilant... 

Sitting in a car, speaking with a Georgian accent, she started sharing about how she discovered that her daughter had been receiving text messages from her 6th-grade teacher- and they were not overtly sexual, but they were definitely inappropriate. They were definitely red-flag grooming messages.

Can you imagine discovering that on your child's phone? Reading things like "Good morning beautiful. Good night beautiful. How was your day beautiful?" and sending your child songs that are not for kids, with innuendos that most definitely infer romantic or sexual desire!

I wouldn't blame you if you were outrageously upset! And this mom was definitely freaked out about the types of messages she was reading.

The mom did the right next thing and reported this inappropriate communication from the teacher to her daughter, to the school. She found out that the teacher was texting 4 of the girls in his class this way.

The school found out it was 4 girls because they brought all the girls in his class for questioning, and the 4 girls that he'd been texting all said that the teacher was also showing them special treatment.

Now... any sane, safe, and responsible adult would conclude that the teacher is acting inappropriately, and their behavior is concerning and, at the very least, should warrant some further investigation. They'd apologize to the parents of the children and acknowledge the grave problem of the teacher breaking safety protocols that all schools have in place. Teachers should never directly communicate with students outside of school hours via private, unofficial, and non-transparent digital communication.

But that's not what happened.

Who's the victim and who's the trouble-maker?

In telling the story on her social media account, this Georgian mom continues to explain that the school somehow made the teacher to be the victim in the story and that the girls were 'suspect'.

She went on to further say that even the sheriffs department was calling the girls suspect. Which, again, makes any sane, safe and responsible adult go 'huh?! wtf?!'... because I know that was also my response.

You might have tons of questions right now... maybe some of them are:

• Why would the girls be considered suspect, what did they do wrong?

• Why is the teacher being called a victim when he's clearly acting inappropriately?

• Has that school lost it's mind? And why is the Sherrifs department acting crazy? None of this makes sense.

• Why didn't the daughter tell her mom that the teacher was texting inappropriate things?

• What happened next? Where is this school? Is the mom getting a lawyer? 

• Is the teacher getting investigated at least? What the ferk?

All valid questions.

*I address how I answer these questions at the bottom of this blog.

What about really young kids?

Now, you might have a toddler who's about to start preschool and you may be thinking to yourself, "wow, that sounds horrible", and "I'll make sure my child doesn't have a phone when they get to 6th grade so something like that can't happen to them".

But the truth is that statistically speaking, 1 in 10 children in grades kindergarten to 12th grade experience sexual misconduct by an educator in N. America- which makes roughly 4 to 5 million children annually.

That's based on a report from 2004, essentially 20 years ago. And one would hope that those numbers have decreased since then.

But, according to this 2023 article in Psychology Today :

 

"A new large-scale, multistate survey of recent high school graduates about the nature and scope of educator sexual misconduct in Grades K-12 conducted by our lab found that almost 20 years after the publication of the Shakeshaft report [the one from 2004], educator sexual misconduct remains rampant. Of the 6632 participants, 11.7 percent reported having experienced at least one form of educator sexual misconduct during grades K-12."

That means that this can impact students in all grades, and the way kids are groomed changes.

A principal without principals

A parent once came to me because she suspected that the school principal had abused her 4-year-old son after he was arrested for possessing child sexual abuse material, and the school found out and suspended him upon learning of the charges. There were no reports of abuse from other parents, but as she asked her son about how much time he spent with the principal of the preschool, she learned that the man had exposed himself to her child. And she only found out because she asked him if he was ever with the principal alone. 

Her child never told the mom about that incident because the son had only been taught about safe and unsafe TOUCH, meaning that he wasn't aware to report that someone had SHOWN him their privates. And the child, innocently, didn't realize that it was also inappropriate behavior that he should report.

So this mom was coming to me to find out what else she could do to find out if any other inappropriate behavior had happened without using leading questions or scaring the child. What's worse is that the child was tremendously fond of the principal, because he was so kind and generous with her child. He was definitely grooming her son, and had the police not independently investigated him and arrested him, he would still be at that school grooming and most likely abusing young children.                                           

So, what's a parent to think and do?

You might be asking yourself, 'Are schools safe to send my kid(s) to?'

No parent wants their child to end up as one of the 11.7% of children impacted by sexual educator misconduct, at any point in their school journey.

The good news is there is actually a lot that parents can do to help make their child's school experience safer.

I won't sugar coat it and say it is an easy process, but it's most definitely worth the effort (perhaps less effort even than homeschooling).

And the steps that will help make your child's school safer for all students! 

So, what are the steps?

Well, there are many, and without making this blog into a book (that's coming tough), I'll list this much:

• Find out if your school has a rigorous and comprehensive screening process.
• Find out how much and how often the staff receives training on abuse prevention education (this helps prevent a situation like the one this mom shared from happening since other educators would understand the red flags and not victim-blame the students).
• If the school doesn't have a good screening process or provide regular abuse prevention training, take steps to speak to the school board or superintendent about your concerns, and better yet, do it through your school's PTA or PAC.

And if you want more details and help on how to do all of that, I want to let you know that I'm doing one last session of my  

"What You Need To Know + Do BEFORE You Send Your Child To School" on April 16th (this TUESDAY) and you're invited to attend if your child is or will be attending kindergarten, preschool, or elementary school now or this fall. 

You can sign up here, and if you can't attend live you will get the replay (but you have to register for the live webinar). You'll have access to the replay for 14 days.

Plus, I'm excited to share that I'll also be opening doors to my 8-week program very soon, called Prepare to Prevent, and if you're interested, click this link to join the Prepare to Prevent waitlist, where you'll be the first to get details and early bird pricing!

*P.S. If you were asking all those questions about the Georgian mom's situation and story, I'll be answering ALL of those questions in my upcoming class (it's free). Again, you can sign up here. Hope to see you there!