Overreaction or right reaction at Miramonte school?

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By now everyone has probably read about the two despicable teachers at Miramonte school and I think we'd all absolutely agree that they deserve to be fired and to spend the rest of their days in jail.

But it seems like the school is overreacting a bit. Reassigning ALL the teachers at the school? Placing psychiatric social workers in ALL the classrooms? Investigators interviewing all current and past students of the school?

It seems to me that these actions might traumatize kids who were not directly traumatized by the two asshat teachers.

Am I wrong? Do you agree with the way the school district is handling this?

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Type: Question • Score: 9 • Views: 6,546 • Replies: 50

@boomerang,

Never assume that everyone's up on your local news story.... Context would be helpful.

1 Reply

@tsarstepan,

It's not local to me -- it's a big news story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/07/miramonte-elementary-school-staff-lewd-acts_n_1259035.html

1 Reply

@boomerang,

I didn't read it all - just enough to find out what happened - but did they explain why they're taking this very extreme measure? What happens to the displaced teachers? Do they still get paid? Do they substitute for the remainder of the year? Will there be a class action suit against the school board for unlawful firing? Will they be back at school come September?

I have another one for you - not to hijack your post - I'll post it below.

1 Reply

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/9516291.Girl__13__given_contraceptive_implant_at_school/

Excerpt:

HOW many children aged between 11 and 16 are receiving contraceptive implants in school without their parents’ knowledge?

That is the question being posed by one furious mum who said it was “morally wrong” to fit the 4cm device into her 13- year-old daughter’s arm, claiming it led to serious mood swings and weight gain.

She said even the girl’s doctor had not been informed and her daughter’s friends had also received them while other parents were frantically inspecting their children’s arms.

The Daily Echo has learnt that a total of nine schools are involved in the sex education initiative, which is part of a government scheme to drive down unwanted teenage pregnancies and protect young people from sexually transmitted infections.

~~~~~~~~~~

Now, can you believe that?!! How dare they? That's gross invasion of the girls' bodies for one thing, and without permission from the parents!

1 Reply

@boomerang,

I'm assuming the mass reassignment is to protect the teachers themselves from any violent reprisals by a disgruntled parent who would blame all of the teachers working at that school.

2 Replies

@tsarstepan,

I don't see how any parent (unless they're whacko) would be so violent as to frighten anybody for something someone else did. They know the teachers involved; everyone else is innocent.

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@Mame,

You're kind of naive to think that every parent involved in a scandal this size will be COMPLETELY rational and go without conspiracy theories that may involve who knew and when did they know mentality.

Given the nature of the crimes involved, there's bound to be some misdirected blame thrown wildly around simply for ego satisfying or carthatic motivation for the possible grieving parent (heck the attacker may not even actually be a parent of any student in that school).

1 Reply

@Mame,

The teachers were reassigned to other schools but they were replaced in this school by teachers who had been laid off due to budget cuts so I'm guessing that there are a lot of extra teachers of LA's payroll right now.

I don't know the answers to the rest of your questions, I doubt anyone knows at this point.

Tsar could be right that they were worried about attacks on other teachers.

It seems to me that it would be very upsetting to the kids to not know a single teacher at the school. To have so much change in such a short time would be upsetting to anyone.

1 Reply

@Mame,

Wow.

I don't know about how such things might be handled in England but there would be a **** storm about that in America.

The girls did consent to the procedure, it wasn't forced on them.

In some situations I'm in favor of girls being about to get contraception without having to inform their parents so I have mixed feelings about this.

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@boomerang,

I haven't followed this yet though I've seen the headlines.

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@Mame,

Mame wrote:

I don't see how any parent (unless they're whacko) would be so violent as to frighten anybody for something someone else did. They know the teachers involved; everyone else is innocent.

THAT problem has never happened b4.
Y shud it happen now ??

There is no reason to remove the innocent teachers,
who are almost 1OO% of them.

David

2 Replies

@boomerang,

I think the school was worried about parents pulling their kids out of school. That's what I gathered anyway from some separate source.

So far as the girls consenting to a procedure, I doubt any of them were legally able to give consent.

1 Reply

I was listening to this story on NPR on the way home. First I'd heard of it (I've been out of touch with news lately)

Mame, the teachers are being reassigned to (I might have this wrong, this is how is sounded to me) an empty school, and will be paid.
Not just the teachers, but everyone down to the custodians.

I haven't formulated an opinion yet as if this is too extreme. I don't know more facts, i.e. where these 2 teachers playing tag team?

While I think this is a BIG move, what surprised me is the last thing said in the story was "some parents don't think this is enough.

Enough?
The school is emptied out, the law has the 2 men, there's a huge investigation going on.
What else do they want? I don't mean that sarcastically. What else do some parents think should be done, short of going back in time?

Let me go look at the NPR website....

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

I agree that there is no reason for them to remove innocent teachers. If fact, it makes the problem look worse than it it (and it is bad). Now parents are surely questioning whether it is school wide, a culture of abuse.

If Mo attended that school but had not had those teachers and had never reported any problems or if I had never witnessed a serious change in his behavior that he couldn't explain I don't think I'd want him interviewed by investigators.

1 Reply

@roger,

You could be right. Really though, it would have made more sense to deal with that on a case by case basis, don't you think?

And...

The girls are not really old enough to consent to sex but that doesn't stop them from having it.

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here's the story you can listen to....

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/02/07/146511726/as-l-a-probes-sex-abuse-charges-staff-replaced-at-elementary-school?print=1

all teachers will be on paid administrtive leave until the end of the school year, at an unoccupied school

Listening to the superintendents comments, he's making no excuses for the failure, and is appalled.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

I agree that there is no reason for them to remove innocent teachers. If fact, it makes the problem look worse than it it (and it is bad). Now parents are surely questioning whether it is school wide, a culture of abuse.

If Mo attended that school but had not had those teachers and had never reported any problems or if I had never witnessed a serious change in his behavior that he couldn't explain I don't think I'd want him interviewed by investigators.

During my education in my childhood, if there had been any sexual interference,
for SURE I 'd have deemed that to be a newsworthy event!
Such a teacher woud have ZERO chance of hushing that up,
unless of course it was by an attractive teacherette.

David

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@chai2,

Thanks, Chai, I'll give it a listen.

They've been assigned to an empty school? How does that make sense?

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@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Mame wrote:
I don't see how any parent (unless they're whacko) would be so violent as to frighten anybody for something someone else did. They know the teachers involved; everyone else is innocent.
THAT problem has never happened b4.
Y shud it happen now ??

There is no reason to remove the innocent teachers,
who are almost 1OO% of them.

David

We don't know if all the teachers, or secretaries, custodians, or other personnel were involved have been taken into custody.
They aren't being punished. They're being paid, they have work to do.

What if it's found more personnel were involved?

I'm not making this a witch hunt, the teachers can still be doing important work, things they could never get time to do otherwise.

What if all the personnel continued at their jobs, and it is found out in the next few days, weeks, months that people who are also responsible were having daily contact with the students?

I think if I was employed by the school, I could understand the rationale for being put to work at another location for the interim.

0 Replies

Overreaction or right reaction at Miramonte school?

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