Posted on 02/18/2008 10:05:27 AM PST by Mrs. Don-o
It would take months for the agency that licenses Oregon teachers to discipline a Salem-area teacher for inappropriately touching at least eight girls.
To get Kenneth John Cushing, then 44, away from Claggett Creek Middle School students immediately, administrators cut him a deal: If Cushing resigned, they would conceal his alleged conduct -- clutching students' waists, touching their buttocks and massaging their shoulders -- from the public.
Cushing signed the pact -- obtained by The Oregonian through public records requests -- with Salem-Keizer Public Schools in 2004, and officials promised not to reveal the teacher's behavior if potential employers called looking for a reference. They would attribute his departure to "personal reasons," the document reads, and make "no reference to this agreement."
Salem's deal is just one of 47 similar confidential settlement agreements obtained or confirmed by the newspaper.
During the past five years, nearly half of Oregon teachers disciplined for sexual misconduct with a child left their school districts with confidential agreements. Most, like Cushing's, promised to keep alleged abuse quiet. Some promised cash settlements, health insurance and letters of recommendation as incentives for a resignation.
The practice is so widespread, school officials across the country call it "passing the trash."
The Oregonian reviewed 767 cases of educator misconduct over the past 10 years in which the state commission revoked or suspended licenses for misbehavior. Sex-related offenses ranked the most common, and in 165 cases the agency disciplined educators for misconduct ranging from touching students or sending them love notes to molestation and rape.
This, of course, is a tiny fraction of the 35,000 educators who teach, mentor and coach in Oregon.
[Cushing] went on to teach at a charter school in Tucson, Ariz., in the 2006-07 school year ...
(Excerpt) Read more at oregonlive.com ...
Hey-y-y-y- --- that might work ---
Sounds like they have learned from the Catholic Church.
Taking lessons from the Catholic Church, it would seem. Who says we have separation of church and state?
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The article mentions that employers have a hard time giving out positive or negative reviews on a former employee due to fear of litigation. Is that a wide-spread practice in a variety of industries or just in education?
And I see no evidence of prosecuting attorneys going after the School Districts' correspondance files and personnel records over the past 50 years so they can comb them for evidence of malfeasance.
Hofstra University Researcher Charol Shakeshaft --- Google that name and you'll get tons of information --- not only found a higher incidence of abuse percentage-wise in pubic schools than in Catholic institutions, but found the level of vigilance and safeguards far lower:
(From School Reform News):
"A few years ago, for example, a review of 412 teachers hired by the Cleveland, Ohio school district disclosed only 26 had undergone required background checks. Not only did 192 school employees have felony convictions, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported, but 27 of them had three or more."
Evidence of cover-up? Who needs to cover up if nobody is looking?
There is not the hatred of the public schools on the liberal side as there is for the Catholic Church. The left’s (and useful idiots on the right) agenda to destroy the Catholic Church used the scandal (called a pedophile priest scandal when in actuality it was homosexual priest scandal) as a means to an end that could not be achieved by attacking the actual moral teachings of the Church. There is no such need to destroy public schools because they are in agreement with their liberal agenda. The public schools, and other institutions, continue to get a free pass by the liberal media (and other rabid anti-Catholics on the left and right), while children continue to be abused.
The difference being you don’t go to jail if you fail to send your kids to Catholic Church.
“No Child’s Behind Left Alone.”
Public schools should not be used as private whore houses by “educators”. The police should be handling these cases, not the education establishment.
Your post was in my head before I clicked on the title. That’s exactly how the CC treated offenders where I’m from; move ‘em to another state and offer a settlement to the victim(s). It’s disconcerting to us Catholics, let alone the public at large.
Do schools have “sovereign immunity” from lawsuits? If there’s no money to be lost or made, there won’t be much exposure.
Congressman Billybob
“Schools cut secret deals with abusive teachers (abusers moved around
to other districts)”
In the mammoth Los Angeles Unified School District, the incompetents
and misfit staffers are also marched around different schools
rather than being fired.
As coined by reporter Jill Stewart, it’s called
“The Dance of The Lemons”.
Not just schools. Hubby worked for a large grocery store chain. He had one employee who actively stalked females, employees and customers, in the store. It went beyond that, far beyond that, but nothing you could go in front of a judge and not be thought insane for complaining about.
This man would come to my place of work and say, I know your hubby is working today, why don’t you... The first time or two I ignored him, trying to keep the peace,but made sure I told hubby exactly what happened/what was said.
Lot of conflict because of work, etc. Company refused to fire him, just moved him from store to store despite numerous complaints.
The next time he approached me, I told him in explicit terms that if he ever so much as looked at me again, he wouldn’t have to worry about hubby—I would kill him. He never bothered me again, but I wonder how many other women he terrorized.
A lot of the problem is women are taught to be too polite, and we often don’t listen to our internal radars.
Yep.
Anti-Catholic bigotry. I have reported you for abuse.
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