Pervs Duck Weak Rules
By Douglas Montero
Originally published by The New York Post, July 31, 2001
The Board of Education's policies to protect students from sexual abuse aren't worth the paper they're written on, advocates and school officials charge.
In 1994, Schools Special Investigator Edward Stancik and a commission of experts outlined 35 recommendations to prevent sexual abuse in schools. But he says the board has not only failed to implement many of them, but has no means to police the rules it did adopt.
"I've yet to see a commitment to comprehensive change," Stancik said. "To make a commitment of time and resources required an admission that there was a real problem."
The BOE insists that it has implemented 32 of the recommendations over the years as the sexual-abuse problem in schools escalated. But critics—even Schools Chancellor Harold Levy—admit the rules issued to the board's field commanders, or superintendents, are rarely enforced.
"I think it's a serious problem in the system," Levy said.
Even the most basic board policy—reporting sexual-abuse allegations to cops—has been ignored so often, the City Council is considering a law making it a crime not to report a sexual-abuse case. Stancik said the guidelines are simple:
Make sure a specially trained sexual-abuse "coordinator" is designated at each school. Often, a victim is shuffled from one official to another.
Make sure students aren't "victimized" a second time during a series of grueling interviews, by requiring schools to establish contact with child-advocacy centers. There, victims can explain the attack once while cops, social workers, school officials, lawyers and doctors watch behind a two-way mirror.
Arm students with knowledge, and require that all teachers or an outside agency teach a sexual-abuse curriculum.
Require all school employees, paid or volunteer, to take a sexual-abuse training class before they're hired. Right now, teachers are required to take the two-hour course—but no one checks attendance.
Shorten the disciplinary process against suspected perverts to six months, from the usual 20 months.
Conduct vigorous background checks on anyone, employee or volunteers, who has contact with students.
Jeff Zeitlin, a retired Bronx high-school teacher, said he remembers going to only one such course—and it was just after the infamous 1987 child-abuse death of Lisa Steinberg at the hands of her illegal adoptive father.
"There's been zero training in recognizing sexual abuse," Zeitlin said.
