There is an inherent problem with privatizing and deregulating publicly-funded schools. Without supervision, without oversight, without accountability, bad things may happen. And they may not be noticed unless there is a whistle-blower, because that’s what happens in the absence of oversight.
Mercedes Schneider reports here on a sex scandal in a New Orleans Charter School.
“It baffled me when I read that administration at a New Orleans charter school, Success Preparatory Academy, failed to immediately alert police regarding a cell phone video of a sexual incident that happened on campus in April 2017.
“School admin are mandated reporters of sexual abuse.
“However, what really sealed the deal for the two administrators arrested is their apparent ignorance that deleting the video from a student’s phone constitutes destroying evidence, and emailing the video– one that falls under the definition of child pornography– to oneself and to another administrator– constitutes possession of child pornography.
“But there is more:
“When made aware of the incident, the principal of the school also failed to report it to the police, and he publicly defends the failure to report the incident to police as well as the decision of the other admin to delete the video from the student’s phone; return that phone to the student, and email the pornographic video to herself and another admin.”
Do sex scandals happen in public schools? Yes. But they are likely to be reported because there is oversight and supervision, and because teachers know that they are mandated to report such cases.
A student was forced to perform sex acts in a bathroom. The student’s mother reported the incident to the police, and the school’s administrators were arrested.
“According to the Advocate, all three administrators (Gangopadhyay, Kusmirek, and Shane) hail from Teach for America. As administrators of a K-8 Louisiana school, all should have been well aware that they are mandated reporters of “the involvement of the child in any sexual act with… any other person… or the aiding of the child’s involvement in any sexual act with any other person [or] …pornographic displays.”
Maybe they didn’t learn that in their five weeks of training.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
DianeRavitch Dark money comes with darker glasses.
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You see? There are so many things public schools can learn from charters!
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Success Pre
pardatory AcademyFixed.
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LOL
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Even alleged sexual misconduct by a teacher or staff member of a public school can and often does see them suspended with or without pay until a court trial decides their guilt or innocence.
During my 30 years as a public school teacher I recall two seperate events where once the teachers, both men, were accused without evidence or a trial, they were suspended without pay.
The teachers union also refused to provide legal support. The two teachers w3ere both on their own and both of them were found not guilty in court.
After the teachers were found not guilty, the teachers’ union stepped up providing lawyers and took the district to court demanding that the district pay all back pay and cover the teachers’ legal costs.
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Maybe these “bad hombres” are following our fearless “leader” joining his new group called “Grope for America.”
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Glad these dorks are being brought on the carpet.
But, hey, what about those perpetrators caught on videotape? Are they in family court yet to answer for rape? Let’s not make this all & entirely about failure to report… Kinda like the way we punish teachers & schools for bad student test scores that don’t count toward grade or grad’n for the students?
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This whole situation bears a striking resemblance to an incident that took place is San Jose, California at one of Mark Zuckerberg’s SUMMIT CHARTER SCHOOLS.
In the Louisiana case discussed above, one thing that I noticed that is similar to the California case is how young the “administrators” are. For example, Ms. Shane graduated college (Fisk University) in 2012, so that puts her in the range of 26-27 years old, with no Doctorate, or even A Master’s Degree in Administration. All she has is that lame 5-week summer course for all TFA teachers. This is the Doogie Howser-ization of charter school administration, or the Bugsy Malone-ization, if you will. It’s highly likely that if Ms. Shane and the others had attained a grad degree in school administration, she and the others would never have acted this way.
Also, just as in the case of above, the school’s principal-equivalent (Executive Director) in the Summit Charter School fiasco in San Jose — Nicholas Kim — is also a TFA Corps Member under 30 years of age.
I posted a zillion words about the San Jose Summit Charter Schools “Rape-gate” over at the Ravitch blog. Just go to this link (BELOW), and see what I wrote, complete with links. Those relevant posts are about half-way through the COMMENTS section:
(I don’t want to clutter up this blog by re-posting the whole story here again, but boy, check it out; it’s quite a yarn!)
Unlike the situation above in Louisiana, the California authorities did not prosecute or even arrest the San Jose Summit Tahoma Charter School administrators for engaging in the same kind of cover-up and failure to fulfill duties as a mandatory reporter. (I’m wondering if Mr. and Mrs. Z. pulled some strings of some kind, or perhaps if someone else did. As my posts over on the Ravitch blog detail, the Summit Board of Directors is filled with some prominent movers and shakers in Silicon Valley.)
However, the parents of the alleged victim in the San Jose DID file a major lawsuit. It looks like any attempt to settle has failed, and it’s now in the discovery phase. Here’s a link to the latest:
https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/California_State_Santa_Clara_County_Superior_Court/16CV302178/N.V._vs_Summit_Public_Schools_et_al/
(I presume that “N..V.” are the initials of Drew’s victims in the case titled:
“N.V. vs. Summit Public Schools et al”)
I got a little more to say on this Summit Charter School Rape-gate.
I spoke with an attorney friend about this, and he shared his opinions and speculations.
The story broke in the news in February 2016, but the lawsuit wasn’t filed until November 2016.
Therefore, it’s almost certain that the victim’s family and Summit Charter Schools, Inc. both lawyered up and attempted a settlement of some kind during that time period of February-thru-November 2016.
Indeed, it’s in Summit’s interest to put this baby to bed and settle this, to avoid any further publicity, and prevent more public details of this whole thing from leaking out in lawsuit filings, depositions, and trial testimony, which in California would be videotaped and available to the media and to the public (a la the Vergara hearings.), and posted on the internet.
Furthermore, anything which that numbskull Principal (Executive Director) Nicholas Kim said under oath could open him up to criminal charges in the molestation case, and to perjury charges, should he perjure himself. The same goes for any and all of the Summit officials who told Kim to cover the whole thing up.
Well, apparently, the two parties could not arrive at a mutually agreeable dollar amount to effect such a settlement, so Summit is preparing to go for a full-on scorched earth strategy, and engage in a no-holds-barred legal battle against the victim and her family.
Perhaps Summit’s final offer may have been … say … $100,000, but the victim’s parents wanted a minimum of … say … $1,000,000 and neither side would budge.
By the way, this is all guess work. Summit may have offered $ 00.00, and the victim’s parents may have asked for $10 million. Who knows? What we DO know is that both sides could not reach a settlement, and are now prepared to take this all the way to trial, as they are both well on the way to do so.
Since they haven’t settled by now, my lawyer friend insists, this could get particularly ugly. As this link BELOW shows, the two sides are already duking it out over procedural matters:
https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/California_State_Santa_Clara_County_Superior_Court/16CV302178/N.V._vs_Summit_Public_Schools_et_al/
For example, Summit’s legal team could claim the underaged victim was some kind of deliberately seductive Lolita, a brazen nymphette who mesmerized and hypnotized the teacher into participating in the affair. They could dig up other students to testify to her sexual history in a sort of “She was already a slut, anyway, so she didn’t suffer THAT much” strategy to get a jury to not find anyone at Summit liable, or if they did find Summit liable, lessen the dollar amount of the award. This is a common and despicable strategy that school districts engage in.
Summit also has the Santa Clara County D.A. on their side, who incredibly declined to prosecute Principal Nicholas Kim for not following his mandatory reporting legal requirements. I’m still gobsmacked by that one.
It’s quite possible that prosecutors the state level could still over-rule the Santa Clara County D.A.’s decision not to criminally prosecute Kim and Summit, and take over the case, then put all the evidence in front of a grand jury to see if they could get indictments against Kim and Summit.
If enough public pressure is brought to bear, this very well may happen.
Summit likely has already spend a mid-six-figure amount so far in legal fees. Should this go all the way to trial, Summit’s lawyers will rack up a good $1-2 million in bill-able hours … at least. They obviously think — or their money-motivated lawyers are influencing them to think — that they can win at trial, or that going to trial will be the least expensive course of action.
Furthermore, their insurance carrier could be pushing them to take this course of action, to minimize the dollar amount the insurance company pays out. (which they may believe would be for far more than the $1-2 million in legal costs to fight it out in civil court.)
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(That’s if the Summit Charter Schools organizations actually HAS an insurance carrier. If not, they could really be in financial jeopardy… and explain their go-for-broke strategy of not settling, and putting this in front of a jury.
… but hey, maybe Chan and Zuckerberg could pony up the cash for any future civil settlement and Summit’s legal fees. Those two idiots are used to wasting insane amounts of money on corporate ed reform folly.
Witness their $100 million hare-brained attempt to (COUGH! COUGH!) … uhh… reform the schools of Newark, New Jersey. Mr. and Mrs. Z, blew all that money, and none of it got to the classroom. None of it was spend on … say … class size reduction, school psychologists, arts programs, music programs, college counselors.
Naah, most of it was vacuumed up by huckster “educational consultants” who didn’t contribute a damn thing to the students of Newark, New Jersey. Those two ass-clown educational amateurs — Mr. and Mrs. Z, I mean — make mega-ditz corporate puppet Cami Anderson look brilliant by comparison.
A good book was written about this Newark fiasco by someone who was an embedded observer of the whole reform-Newark fiasco. Its name escapes me at the moment.
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One other thing …
According to this page:
http://successpreparatory.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=713204&type=u
Ms. Kusmirek graduated from college in 2007, but became the school’s Co-Director (Principal or Co-Principal) in Fall 2006 — again, at the ripe old age of 30 or 31, and without having to obtain a Master’s or Doctorate in School Administration, as she would have been in the public school system.
Again, had Ms. Kusmirek been properly trained by and been required to obtain a second degree in administration — as administrators are in the much-maligned public school system — she very likely would not have made these bone-headed moves that got her arrested and prosecuted.
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Jack, the chronology makes no sense. How could she graduate college in 2007 but become principal in 2006 at the age of 30?
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typo change 2006 TO 2016
Ms. Kusmirek graduated from college in 2007, but became the school’s Co-Director (Principal or Co-Principal) in Fall 2006
should have been
Ms. Kusmirek graduated from college in 2007, but became the school’s Co-Director (Principal or Co-Principal) in Fall 2016
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