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Monday, November 14, 2011

Ind. Law - My sister, a teacher, is outraged about the Penn State rapes and the failures to act and follow-up

ILB: My sister Nancy Singer was born in Pennsylvania and ever since has been a Penn State / Joe Paterno fan. Add to that, two of our grandparents were Italian immigrants.

She was head of the English department at Avon High until she retired last year, remarking that she was now seeing too many students whose parents she taught turn up in her popular classes.

Nancy cannot believe the failures at Penn State. She told me: 20 years ago Judge Coleman told us what our responsibilities are, and everyone who heard him still remembers vividly.

By "Judge Coleman," she means David H. Coleman, Judge of Hendricks Superior Court 2 – 1991 to present.

I've asked her to write up what she told me:

[This first is a note Nancy sent to another woman she taught with]

I was discussing the Penn State case with my sister and told her about Dave Coleman coming to that inservice meeting years ago.

I remember that he said it was our responsibility to report any child abuse to our superior and that we were bound to NOT stop there.

I remember he told us that if they did nothing that we had the responsibility "to jump over them" and go to the next step and that we needed to keep track of what was done and not just assume it was taken care of.

Is that what you remember?

[This is the response from her friend]

Yes. that's exactly what I remember, but I can't tell you when we were told that. I also know that every student teacher I've had has been told the same by their universities. Over the years, I've called Child Protective Services when I didn't think a counselor or administrator was going to follow through.

[This from Nancy to me]

This was in the early 90s. Dave Coleman is judge of Hendricks County Superior Court , and like many of the judges, was a high school teacher before he went to law school. This was during an in-service day. We probably got to select from various speakers....and Dave was probably talking about legal matters about which teachers needed to be aware.

The person I confirmed this with is another longtime teacher. Her memory and ethics are impeccable. She was a teacher to whom kids often confided, and I am not surprised that she took this charge as seriously as I did.

Over the years I know I have referenced this in-service to other teachers who were teaching with me during that time and I do not remember any of them ever saying they did not know that we needed to do more. Most teachers really do take their responsibility to children seriously; we may not always want to view ourselves as "in loco parentis" anymore, but we know who should have the kids' backs.

We could also have been advised other times and I might just not remember---I am sure this was the first time that anyone made a strong point of our responsibility to follow-up and make sure that something, at least an investigation, had been done.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 14, 2011 01:00 PM
Posted to Indiana Law