They say… that the school system is good. Homeschooling is bad. Protect our teachers! They help our kids!
In one school in the Los Angeles school district, one teacher is being investigated after doing seriously nasty things (after a film developer was like, “ew” and alerted the cops – Related: how dumb is he to try and get his bondage photos developed?) and another is being investigated in the same school for abuse allegations. My kids, while we live in Los Angeles County, are in their own school districts, so technically, this isn’t “our problem.” I’m still extremely frustrated though – these are children, and my kids attend public school.
But check this article out. Here are some quotes from the article that make me livid.
Many parents said they want to know how the alleged acts happened during school hours.
IN THE CLASSROOM, during the school day. I’d want to know too.
Parents of several alleged victims are already taking legal action. Some victims said they told a school counselor about the alleged abuse, but they weren’t taken seriously and were reportedly told, “It’s not very good to make stories up.”
My kid has been suspended in the past because another kids said he hit him – and no one saw. There were no witnesses. And yet, he was suspended for a week, and the counselors were all over it. (Turns out the other kid was a bully that ultimately drove my child crazy – not not an exaggeration. We removed him to another school after a stay in a mental institution.) “Some victims” constitutes more than one. Why didn’t they do their job? MORE THAN ONE. What the fuck?
Attorneys for the victims said the school and the district failed to protect the students.
“Rather than take the steps to protect these kids, rather than making sure the door is open, make sure that there’s a monitor, check to see that he’s doing things properly, interview some of the students…what they did is they sanitized his file,” said attorney Raymond P. Boucher. “They took those complaints out and trashed them, so that the next time a complaint happened or took place, nobody knew anything about it.”
Shame on them. This takes “Administrative bureaucracy,” of which I have a lot of experience, to a whole new level.
The school board is expected to call for the firing of Springer on Tuesday. But under California law, neither the board nor the superintendent can fire a teacher. The case has to go before an administrative law judge and a three-teacher panel. During the process, Springer would be placed on paid administrative leave. Berndt was fired in March 2011 shortly after his investigation began.
Sickening.
Even if the two men are convicted of the crimes, they would still receive their pensions under state law.
I thought under California law you weren’t allowed to profit from your crimes. Considering one guy is an alleged abuser of 18 years at the same school, I think this constitutes profiting, considering he got paid to go in teach AND abuse. That’s sickening.
Yeah. Those folks who want teachers’ salaries dependent upon performance? That want folks to be able to be fired for cause? They are called crazy. This? Is disgusting. They’re not crazy.
Being in Southern California, I hear about this story all day long on the radio. I’ve had to explain what semen is and why it’s being fed to kids on cookies. It’s so bad that I’ve had to switch to music. I’m a news radio fan, so that’s a big deal.
The whole time this has been going on, I’ve been applying to get my daughter into a private junior high and planning to return to homeschooling my son until he goes into junior high. It’s going to be hard, financially and time-wise, but I am not taking any chances.
Have you seen Waiting for Superman? I just watched it last week on Netflix streaming…it talks a lot about the issues facing students and parents when it comes to the schools in America, including tenured teachers and how it’s practically impossible to get rid of them. I recommend it if you haven’t seen it!