Image Credit: Canva
The Tennessee Conservative [By Paula Gomes] –
According to topic experts, sexual abuse at the hands of educators is being enabled by other teachers that predators work with as well as school administrators.
The foremost authorities in the United States on the topic of sexual misconduct at the hands of educators came together last week to provide information on this epidemic. Titled “Sexual Abuse in Schools: Bringing the Silence to an End,” the webinar was hosted by Verifient, an organization that helps school districts vet candidates.
Host Rebekah Campbell stated that most children that are victims of this crime – one out of four girls and one out of six boys under the age of eighteen – will never speak out.
Charol Shakeshaft, an educational researcher on the topic of educator sexual abuse and author of “Organizational Betrayal: How Schools Enable Sexual Misconduct and How to Stop It” has acted as an expert witness in cases of sexual misconduct by teachers says that at least 17 percent of U.S. school children have been abused by people they are supposed to trust.
According to Shakeshaft, there is no specific profile that predators are drawn to, other than the victim being in some way “vulnerable” and that those that commit such crimes are just as likely to be an outstanding teacher as they are a “crummy” one.
Shakeshaft says that many of the educators that target children and teens display behaviors such as crossing boundaries that their fellow teachers may not report.
Amos Guiora, Professor of Law at Utah State University, says that schools are an “ecosystem of enabling” with school administrators who commit acts of commission that allows perpetrators to escape culpability.
Guiora believes that enablers and bystanders, those who should have known what was happening, should be criminalized.
Billie-Jo Grant of McGrath Training Solutions says that there is a series of patterns – a “predator playbook” – that has not changed over many decades but that in order to move the needle forward in preventing abuse, more data is needed.
The Department of Education does not track how often educator sexual misconduct happens, and as a result, the estimates of how often it does occur may be woefully undercounted. In order to get more data, more funding is needed for studies, that in turn can help create laws to address the problem.
Terri Miller, President of Stop Educator Sexual Abuse Misconduct & Exploitation (SESAME) says that predatory teachers typically are employed by three school systems before being caught.
These “mobile molesters” can have up to 73 victims in their lifetime.
The practice of “passing the trash” allows abusers to move from one school district to another with their teaching licenses intact and their background checks clean.
A recent example is that of Nathan Dawson, a Walker County, Georgia, teacher who allegedly had an inappropriate relationship with a student while he was employed in Hamilton County, Tennessee.
According to a notarized statement from the alleged victim, Dawson abused the student when she was sixteen and attending Central High School in Chattanooga. It took her four years to speak out.
Hamilton County Schools began an investigation last year into Dawson’s conduct after receiving a tip but ultimately did not find hard evidence of what had transpired. The district chose not to renew his contract for the 2024-2025 school year.
Dawson passed a background check for his new job in Georgia, but the school district does not have a mandatory policy of reviewing personnel files which may have tipped them off.
Dawson has a history of crossing lines in regards to his professional relationships with students but has not been charged criminally either in Georgia or Tennessee.
About the Author: Paula Gomes is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative. You can reach Paula at paula@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
One Response
Yup, “education” is terminally infested with lucifer’s accursed dimmercraps.