Posted on 11/02/2002 6:45:00 AM PST by Pern
Four elementary school boys are expected to be expelled in one school bus sexual assault and three other boys have been suspended in a separate, less-serious attack.
No arrests have been made in the less-serious attack, but it is under police investigation.
In the more serious attack, two 10-year-old boys were arrested on sexual battery counts and released to their parents. They are accused of assaulting a 9-year-old girl Monday.
A 9-year-old and an 8-year-old are also suspected of involvement, but police spokesman Cpl. Don Kelly said they are too young to be arrested under Louisiana law.
School system spokesman Meg Casper said all four boys, who attended Tanglewood Elementary, have been suspended pending expulsion hearings.
The substitute bus driver who was driving the bus that day, Latonya Harris, also has been fired, Casper said.
Superintendent Clayton Wilcox said she did not respond appropriately to children's reports of the attack that was going on inside the bus. He would not elaborate.
A similar, but less-serious, offense resulted in the suspension of three Park Elementary students recently, Casper said.
Attorney John Aydell said his client's 11-year-old son was attacked by three other boys last week. Two held him while a third tried to force the 11-year-old to perform a sexual act, Aydell said.
Casper said the boys involved have been suspended both from school and from bus-riding. She said she could not reveal the length of the suspensions, citing rules regarding student privacy.
She said she also could not discuss the precise behavior the principal found to have been involved in the incident.
Aydell said the boy's mother had trouble getting the proper law-enforcement agency to investigate what happened. It was first referred to the Sheriff's Office and later to city police, causing a delay in the investigation.
Kelly said city police detectives are investigating the Park Elementary bus incident as an assault "of a sexual nature."
He said he could not elaborate because the investigation is ongoing.
Casper said the Park Elementary incident was properly handled and reported by the bus driver after it was brought to her attention.
"It is fairly routine" for bus drivers to refer students to their principals for possible discipline. Statistics kept by the school system do not separate those incidents from discipline incidents that occur at school or elsewhere under school authority.
For the 2001-2002 school year, a total of 73,264 discipline incidents of all kinds were reported in all grades.
The records do not include specific numbers for sex crimes, but Casper said those kinds of incidents could fall under either "immoral practices" or "other offense."
For last school year, 332 discipline incidents related to immoral practices were recorded.
Of those, 32 involved elementary school students, according to discipline records.
For the more general category of "other offense," 7,650 discipline incidents were recorded.
Of those, 376 were elementary school students.
Counselors from the I CARE program have been working with the 9-year-old girl since the attack on the bus on Monday, Casper said.
"That was one of the first things we did," she said.
Once the boys involved are formally expelled, counselors also will work with them as well, she said.
School authorities and state children's welfare investigators said children who commit acts like the ones of which the Tanglewood boys are accused may themselves be victims of some kind of abuse or neglect.
Marcia Daniel, a spokeswoman for the Office of Community Services, said such incidents "can be an indicator that there has been inappropriate behavior," but are not conclusive.
"That in and of itself doesn't mean there has been abuse," she said.
"Legally, for us, it doesn't provide enough information just by itself" for the agency to open an investigation into the children's care," she said.
Daniel said such behavior can be learned from television, movies or video games. Access to those kinds of materials may suggest improper supervision.
"It certainly raises red flags," she said.
The Office of Community Services, which investigates child abuse, has no formal role in investigating the school bus attacks. OCS deals with abuse or neglect by caretakers, Daniel said.
Daniel said it's more appropriate for school authorities or other adults who know the boys to take a close look at their family lives.
School teachers and staff have access to information state investigators are unlikely to learn, she said.
"They hear about things that go on in children's homes," Daniel said.
If, in doing that, school authorities suspect abuse or neglect, they are required to report it.
"Their suspicions don't have to be confirmed," Daniel said.
Casper said counselors cannot begin their work with the Tanglewood boys until their expulsion hearings are complete because that might cause a conflict with the expulsion process.
That process should be complete next week, she said.
Casper said that if the boys are expelled, they may have the option of attending Valley Park Alternative School. They may be required to get counseling or meet other requirements to be permitted to attend.
"We have an obligation to educate them," she said.
Fired as substitute bus driver. Latonya, hon, it doesn't get much lower than that.
For halloween . . . . where I live parents let their 5-year-olds dress that Miss Britney daily.
This comment and news article is just another reason not to trust government schools to take care of your children for you.
www.sepschool.org
You're kidding...right? From all the statistics describing the miscreant children in that school district it is doubtful that anything will be done at all. If I were a parent in that district I would be home-schooling or Christian schooling. Most of the parents evidentally think this is the status quo and are not attempting to change anything. A really sad state of affairs.
Public education in this country is essentially dead. If you have elementary school children....get them out of the public education meat grinder and put them in private schools.
No money you say?....Can the vacations, drive your jalopy until the wheels fall off, forget stylish clothes etc...Its dooable for most folks.
Government schools have an abundance of incompetent teachers who are there because of the teachers unions trade votes for democratic party protection of this horror show, terrible curriculum, and no clasroom discipline....Just too sad.
"Popular explanations of the troubles in government schools don't get to root causes. They ignore the fact that public schools must avoid the "Purpose of Life Question" in order to maintain broad-based political support and avoid lawsuits."
"By exiling questions about human origins, destiny, and purpose of life, public schools end up limiting the use of reasoning itself, primarily by restricting it to the material world (e.g., math, physics, and chemistry)."
"A schooling system that puts a barrier on reasoning dooms itself to a downward spiral into a skills training regimen, and a weak one at that."
"Worse, a society that ejects reasoning on the most compelling questions of human life from the formation of its youth gradually diminishes personal integrity, initiative, creativity, political awareness, and intellectual independence among its people. . . . ."
"An essential step to fully recover education is to separate schools from the state in a manner similar to our historic separation of church and state. However, individual families need not wait for society-wide change; they can liberate their children and enjoy the benefits of genuine education simply by home schooling or paying private school tuition. . . . ."
The full text of the speech can be found at: http://www.sepschool.org/essays/fritz/wash_u.html
My three children went to Christian or Catholic schools for all of their elementary and junior high school years. When we went to Panama they had to go to DODDS schools which were good schools because they had rigorous standards.
If a kid screwed up in the DODDS schools the Army Commander could send the whole family home and often did.
I am not bragging but our son graduated from West Point, our daughters won scholarships and the oldest is now in law school. Our youngest is now a senior in college and doing great too.
Some of my childrens' classmates at the Christian and Catholic schools didn't do well but it had more to do with their parents than with their education.
Christian school and Catholic school teachers do not make the salaries that public school teachers do but they have more autonomy in their classrooms and higher standards to meet.
I have been a Christian school teacher, public school teacher and DODDS school teacher and I can honestly say that although my Christian school salary was the lowest of the low I had more pride in every tiny penny that I earned because I was really actually teaching children, not babysitting them.
Most people who have removed their children from the public school system understand that the fundamental reason for the decline of America's public educational intitutions from the best in the world (1950) to the worst now is the following:
Incompetent teachers..many who are nearly illiterate
Poor curriculum ignoring classical standards
No dicipline in the classrooom.<
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