Should sex abuser get teaching license back?

Damn, no. It wasn't like it was a one time thing when she was a stupid kid, herself. This woman abused 2 kids for three years, for grief's sake. She should not be allowed in any job that involves working closely with kids.

It is well known that it is practically impossible to cure a sex abuser.

Ugh.

My first thought is, are they SURE she didn't abuse any of these other kids she has been teaching? Yes she's been in a 15-year relationship, that's good, but it doesn't automatically mean she no longer is abusive. Nor does the fact that nobody's complained -- the two girls we know about didn't say anything for a very long time. Before 2005, nobody had complained but that didn't mean that nothing had happened.

Well, maybe so. We had a local doctor accused of sexually abusing two young girls. He had much support from other doctors in the area. Even I gave him the benefit of doubt pending trial - till he stole a plane and took off for Brazil.

NO, a 3 year history is not an incident

Look at it this way - would you trust her with your daughter?

I vote "No" keep her away from kids.

I feel the same as the rest of you -- she shouldn't be in the school.

soz, I'm glad you showed up here. I don't know if you read the linked article but for the last 21 years the woman has worked with deaf and hard of hearing kids in the public schools.

I don't know if the relationship between a deaf student and their teacher is any different than that of a hearing student and their teacher but that factoid rang my alarm bells.

I assume (and yes, I know what they say about ass-u-me) that their relationship might be a little tighter since the student would really rely on the teacher for a lot more than a regular student would.

Do you think a deaf 4th grader would be less likely to tell on their teacher?

Also, I think if it had been a man that the conversation wouldn't even be taking place; there would be no question that he doesn't belong in a classroom.

I don't see where a long term, adult relationship makes any difference. Pedophilia is pedophilia. Many (most?) pedophiles have long term, adult relationships.

Oh yeah -- about deaf kids ---

I wonder if the school might be worried about losing someone with such a specific skill. That teacher wouldn't be easy to replace.

I think the department of education should never have revoked her license, for two reasons:

1. There are good reasons why the criminal law includes statutes of limitation, and that these statutes apply to this 25-year old case. Given that criminal law lets the matter rest, so should the board of education.
   
   
2. It would have been trivial for the teacher to avoid the whole problem by lying about the matter and denying the abuse. Instead, she chose to come clean about it -- a choice that commands my respect. So as a practical matter, when the board of education revoked the teacher's license, it didn't punish her for the abuse -- it punished her for being honest about it. Is this really the incentive you want to set for future child abusers? Their best strategy now is to lie, keep their jobs, and continue to be a threat to their students. I don't think that helps anyone.

Finally, as an aside: Am I the only one who notices how vague the alleged and admitted "abuse" is, the dearth of details about the actual act? Given America's draconian laws on child abuse, the teacher's crime could be as gruesome as flashing the girls -- in which case it would most certainly not offset her redeeming qualities, which no party in this matter disputes.

Not really. There is a glut of qualified teachers for Deaf kids. The thing is -- and it gets a little thorny and politicky here -- there aren't really a glut of qualified HEARING teachers for Deaf kids. And sometimes schools just don't want to deal with Deaf teachers.

As for the dependent relationship, it's hard to say. I read the article but couldn't quite tell if it was an all-deaf & hard of hearing, non-residential school, or if it had some sort of deaf program within a mainstream (hearing) school district. The fact that it seems to be part of Portland Public Schools would seem to point to the latter.

I read it this morning though and may have forgotten details, and need to turn off the computer now...!

But offhand I'd say that it's possible that there would be even more barriers than in most situations, in terms of telling other adults, if this was the main adult contact/ authority figure these kids dealt with.

Thomas,
you don't graduate from being a sex offender and as such you under no circumstances are allowed around children without supervision. This includes
teaching children, and there are no statutes of limitation.

I agree though, that revoking her license altogether wasn't necessary: she could have chosen to teach adults, couldn't she?

Her choosing to teach children again instead of high school or college level,
makes me suspicious.

points well made, I shall reconsider my knee-jerk reactionary response.

As far as the law is concerned, the teacher isn't a sex offender. She has never been convicted, because her case is too old under the statute of limitation. Given that she isn't a sex offender as far as the law is concerned, the board of education role is out of line to punish her. Remember, it's a board of education, not a vigilante committee.


Why does it make you suspicious that she chose to teach children? Some teachers are especially gifted for elementary school, and nobody is disputing she was one of them. Why is it suspicious of her to specialize in the kind of teaching she's especially good at?

Thanks.

Probably for the same reason a diabetic shouldn't work in a chocolate factory.
This woman - by her own admittance, has molested two children for a duration of time, and the likelihood of being tempted again, is very high. Just because
there aren't any new cases reported, doesn't mean they haven't taken place.

I stand by my answer that a sex abuser should not be teaching young children.

I, too, stand by my answer: the authorities shouldn't encourage sex abusers should to lie about what they'd done. In particular, they shouldn't take away their livelihood for being honest, thereby encouraging them to continue being undiscovered threats to children.

And school boards are not competent to adjudicate child abuse cases when even the police and the courts aren't.

It seems we've reached an impasse. Let's agree to disagree.

My inclination is to say no, she should at least lose her teaching license - simply because there was never any consequence to her for her behavior- which she admits was wrong and has obviously impacted these girls negatively.

If a private school wants to hire her knowing her past history after they'd made all the parents and students aware of the situation, that's their choice.
But if she's allowed to retain her position and her comfortable life escaping any consequence for her molesting behavior- I think that also sends the wrong message to would-be molesters. In other words - 'Look, you may be able to do this and get away with it scot free.'

I agree it's a shame, she does seem to be a talented teacher- but as the psychologist in the article stated- this had to be a fairly ingrained part of who she was for her to have done it with two different girls over the course of three years.
And it wouldn't be just flashing. If she was the swim coach and they were on the swim team - they'd probably have seen each other naked (when they were getting changed) as a matter of course.
I don't quite know what it might have involved - I can't picture it myself (not being a lesbian) but sexual manipulation and force is sexual manipulation and force. One of these girls was ten years old for goodness sake - talk about confusing the issue for her at a very vulnerable time...
And a man would have been called a rapist and summarily let go, unless he also was a very talented teacher, right? No - we all know that issue wouldn't even be raised.
This is definitely bowing to a double standard.

Is she with a woman now (her partner) or a man? That wasn't clear to me in the article.
I'm just curious.

She wasn't necessarily especially gifted at teaching elementary school, by the way.

I DO agree with the generally cautious approach you're taking -- I think people are often too quick to tar and feather when "sexual abuse" and "children" show up in the same sentence. I also take your point about the board of education doing something rather than a court of law.

But a hearing person who was a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing for twenty-one years is a kind of problematic archetype. The article indicates that her hearing superiors like her and think she ran an "efficient" classroom -- that's entirely congruent, to me, with her being a terrible teacher of the deaf and hard-of-hearing. (The lumping of "hard-of-hearing" in there immediately makes me suspect, for one. Very different situations. Deaf kids are usually best served in an ASL environment; hard-of-hearing kids are more about enhanced auditory situations, microphones et al.)

The article Boomer linked to is really vague in several directions. (Ex: How bad was the initial abuse? [Though, by your own standards, it doesn't matter since the statute of limitations has run out, right?])

I can see things playing out in several different ways.

God no, take that license and rip it into a million pieces.
Dirty bitch.

Thomas,
the school board has every right to revoke a teachers license if there is reasonable doubt that the welfare of its children is in jeopardy, despite the
absence of a judicial verdict.

I know of a case where a physician sexually harassed three nurses in a hospital.
In court he could prove reasonable doubt and was not convicted, however the
hospital did revoke his privileges, as they felt that their fiduciary responsibility is with the nurses ; they needed to protect them.

This case with the Oregon teacher is similar: the foremost concern of the
school board is the safety of its children, regardless if the teacher was convicted or not - and in this case the teacher even admitted her sexually abusing two girls.