TEACHER ABUSE BAD FOR STUDENT BODY

 

How does a seasoned school administrator lose their job by ignoring students? When they decide some student voices are more important than others.

 

The old saying about a squeaky wheel getting the grease may apply here, but the school official was out of lube. Now they’re out of a job, or will be reassigned along with the baggage of ignoring LBGTQ students.

 

What is LBGTQ? Michigan State University, of all places, explains:

Adolescence is a time of change and transition for young people and typically includes significant physical, social and emotional growth. An important task during this time is identity development. For youth who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer/questioning (LBGTQ), this can be a particularly challenging time, especially if the adults in their lives are uninformed and ill-equipped to support them.

 

Why Michigan State of all places?

 

I hear the question, ‘Couldn’t you use Penn State as a better example?’

 

In what seems a roiling storm of unbelievable behavior, Sandusky is old news, Larry Nassar is the new bad man on the national front.

 

Michigan State University said May 16 it had reached a $500 million settlement with more than 300 women and girls who alleged Larry Nassar,the former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor, sexually abused them.

The university will pay out $425 million, and set aside another $75 million for survivors who may come forward in the future. The payout far exceeds the $109 million Penn State paid to its more than 30 victims in the case of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, who was convicted of molesting young boys in 2012.

 

Any story about teacher abuse in educational institutions tears at the fabric of society. We go to school to learn what we need to know. We send our kids to school to learn what we can’t teach.

 

Like what?

 

How to get along with people different than us.

 

How to negotiate classes with teachers on a bad day.

 

How to survive the process and come out with enough tools to make it to the next level, whether job, college, or the military.

 

Fortunately some learn how to use the system even if the system ignores them. The term ‘going over your head’ comes to mind when students in what the Oregonian called a ‘rural Oregon high school’ got advice from the ACLU.

 

The students who notified the ACLU of Oregon wrote posts about growing up gay in rural Oregon. I found the article on the website but no posts.

 

So how does a seasoned school administrator lose their job by ignoring students? When their leadership warrants it, even in a rural community.

 

This was the high school I graduated from in 1973. What I didn’t know back then was I lived in a rural area, and people didn’t always play their role. For instance, a policeman used to pull over a kid and his girlfriend to talk to the girl. Eventually it caused their break up.

 

I sent my kids to a suburban Portland high school in a town about as rural as North Bend, as if anything outside Portland is rural. One of their teachers was accused of inappropriate behavior with a player on the girl’s basketball team he coached.

 

Caught in the cross hairs of decency, he lost his job. After the dust settled the girl came forward and apologized for trashing the coach. Her claim wasn’t why he was fired, she was upset over playing time but used something more incendiary for better results.

 

The story of coach Ken Johnson’s accusation made the headlines. The public exoneration of his innocence is not on google’s front page.

 

Another coach from the same time cut a nasty swath of teacher abuse through the same school, his outcome more disturbing.

 

According to the Tigard-Tualatin School District, Jolley was employed with the district from the 2005 until he left in 2016. A district spokesperson said he mainly taught language arts and reading.

He served as an assistant coach for softball, football and baseball.

“I recognized his name, then I looked at the picture, when I saw his face I was like, ‘Wow, not too surprising,'” said Sonice Deitas, a former student of Jolley’s. “I was a little shocked but I figured it was coming sooner or later.”

Deitas said Jolley acted like a student and tried to fit in with student athletes. He said he didn’t have the normal boundary between students and faculty.

“I could see him, from time to time, he would smile, smirk at certain girls,” he said.

 

Parents need to know they can trust schools to avoid hiring creepy little guys re-living their own poorly executed high school years as adults.

 

How well do you know your community? The teaches in the schools? I’m not of the popular opinion of ‘grow up and get over it’ when teachers and administrators fall short. Turn it into an educational moment.

 

The events in North Bend and Tigard work toward that goal. The lesson learned? Stand up and find the right audience for how teacher abuse affected you. The ACLU of Oregon did the listening when the principal didn’t.

 

The police department did the listening in Tigard. And made the arrest. Do the wheels of justice turn slowly? Yes, and for a reason. Just not slow enough to save Coach Johnson from a false allegation.

 

Where is his apology?