Beauvoir Scandal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Beauvoir parent I can tell you that I MYSELF was not told that there were photos of inappropriate touching. So I'm wondering if the Examiner has provided incorrect information.

The article quotes the Commander involved in the investigation.

This may open up the can of worms known as the competence or lack of competence of the Washington DC police. If he said it and it's true, he should not have. If he said it and it's false, he should not have.

[Anonymous]

"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Beauvoir is paying the price for hubris and arrogance of its administrators. Our cathedral brothers and sisters are getting layed off due to financial mismanagement while the Beauvoir head of school makes an annual salary of $330,000. That means that out of the $30,000 annual tuition $10,000 goes directly to the head. Add on top of that the private security provided by PECF police that patrol the homes of school heads, the unlimited charge card and travel allowances, generous health and deferred compensation and the compensation package hits $500,000. No elementary school head is worth that much. "


That is a ridiculously high amount of compensation for someone running a pre-K to grade 3 school. What is the source for that figure? St. Albans admits a significant number of students in grades 7 and 9 whose parents had never applied to Beauvoir for their child. It is not a NW DC "neighborhood school" like GDS-Sidwell-Maret-Beauvoir.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Balderdash. The school issued a boilerplate statement. The articles shed no light on how well the situation was handled.

If there are specific points that you believe I missed, please point them out.

My comment referred to the two newspaper articles and was addressed to the PP who was so lavish in praise for Beauvoir. I'm sorry if I did not make that clear.

I have no real opinion about how well Beauvoir has handled this situation. I don't have enough information to form an opinion, and I may never have enough information to do so. That's actually okay with me. While I am curious and concerned, especially because I would like to know what any school could have done to reduce the likelihood of this behavior, catch it earlier, and maximize the chances of getting good information into the hands of the police, I realize that as someone who is not a member of the Beavoir community, I have no need to know.

What bothered me about PP's laudatory comments was the insistence that based on publicly available information, "it is clear that the school has handled the situation well." I think this is far from being the case.

And frankly, the swipe at people who allegedly posted in order to harm Beauvoir or reduce applicant pool (!) struck me as a rhetorical device basically along the lines of, "When did you stop beating your wife?"

Jeff, I'm glad that you found the administration to be forthcoming, and I agree that that is a point in their favor. But I don't feel that being forthcoming, under pressure and after many days, in itself constitutes a praiseworthy response. I would also like to see the statements made by school officials evaluated for accuracy and completeness by those with greater expertise than I before relying on them to reach any judgments about the effectiveness of the response. For example, you report, " School officials point out that police lacked sufficient grounds to make an arrest that morning." That may be true, but could nothing at all have been gained from an early interview? Could or should school officials have contacted the police and ensured their presence before confronting the teacher? I don't know the answers to these questions, and in raising them, my intent is not to fuel rumors of a conspiracy, but simply to point out that until such questions are addressed, I think high praise for Beauvoir is premature, to say the least.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Balderdash. The school issued a boilerplate statement. The articles shed no light on how well the situation was handled.

If there are specific points that you believe I missed, please point them out.

My comment referred to the two newspaper articles and was addressed to the PP who was so lavish in praise for Beauvoir. I'm sorry if I did not make that clear.

I have no real opinion about how well Beauvoir has handled this situation. I don't have enough information to form an opinion, and I may never have enough information to do so. That's actually okay with me. While I am curious and concerned, especially because I would like to know what any school could have done to reduce the likelihood of this behavior, catch it earlier, and maximize the chances of getting good information into the hands of the police, I realize that as someone who is not a member of the Beavoir community, I have no need to know.

What bothered me about PP's laudatory comments was the insistence that based on publicly available information, "it is clear that the school has handled the situation well." I think this is far from being the case.

And frankly, the swipe at people who allegedly posted in order to harm Beauvoir or reduce applicant pool (!) struck me as a rhetorical device basically along the lines of, "When did you stop beating your wife?"

Jeff, I'm glad that you found the administration to be forthcoming, and I agree that that is a point in their favor. But I don't feel that being forthcoming, under pressure and after many days, in itself constitutes a praiseworthy response. I would also like to see the statements made by school officials evaluated for accuracy and completeness by those with greater expertise than I before relying on them to reach any judgments about the effectiveness of the response. For example, you report, " School officials point out that police lacked sufficient grounds to make an arrest that morning." That may be true, but could nothing at all have been gained from an early interview? Could or should school officials have contacted the police and ensured their presence before confronting the teacher? I don't know the answers to these questions, and in raising them, my intent is not to fuel rumors of a conspiracy, but simply to point out that until such questions are addressed, I think high praise for Beauvoir is premature, to say the least.

What is praiseworthy is the fact that Beauvoir seems to be doing everything it can to get it right. They seem to be working quickly to correct their mistakes. They seem to be absorbing what is said on DCUM and elsewhere and responding accordingly. High praise? I agree, no, not yet. But have they not earned at least some praise for their willingness to allow their thinking and response to evolve in this godawful and unprecedented situation?

[Anonymous]

For example, you report, " School officials point out that police lacked sufficient grounds to make an arrest that morning." That may be true, but could nothing at all have been gained from an early interview? Could or should school officials have contacted the police and ensured their presence before confronting the teacher? I don't know the answers to these questions, and in raising them, my intent is not to fuel rumors of a conspiracy, but simply to point out that until such questions are addressed, I think high praise for Beauvoir is premature, to say the least.

I have to agree. This hits the nail on the head for me. This is exactly what has bothered me about the school's response. I think the administration had a duty to ensure that the police had access to the alleged perpetrator of a possible crime in their school with all due speed. They should have waited for the police to arrive before he was escorted from campus. I would think the Washington PD would have made getting to Beauvoir to handle this a priority and could have had an officer there within minutes of the discovery. Certainly he could have been taken in for questioning with even the minimal amount of evidence available: the camera assigned to him contained child pornography. The school administration could have asked him to come to the office to handle some paperwork as a ruse to remove him from the classroom/get him away from students while they awaited the police. Just throwing him off of campus seems like either a knee-jerk reaction (when there should be a prior written POA for such situations) or haste to avoid media scrutiny. The fact that no one seems to know where this man is, and the police have not been able to speak with him, is vastly upsetting. I just fail to understand how this can be described as "handling the situation well."

[Anonymous]

I personally don't care about the reputation of the school one way or the other. Full disclosure and media attention is important, IMO, so that we can find ways to prevent this in the future. This has struk a nerve with myself and others because we all fear that this could happen to our child. True there are no absolutes and bad things can happen anywhere but you can, IMO, shift the probabilities. As parents we spend alot of time helping to plan parties, field trips, and fundraise for new playground equipment we should also be putting our heads together and working with the schools to protect our kids.

Education. I read somewhere that the worst message to kids back in the 70s was "stranger danger". The % show that a predator is much more likely to be someone who knows and is close to the child. Are there updated education programs that can help teach our children to know what is happening, talk to a parent, and have the tools to protect themselves? Classes for parents, kids, brochures? Every school has a school counselor, is there a way to train school pyschologists to recognize patterns of behavior?

Coordination with authorities. Did the school know what to do and involve the police as soon as possible? I would like to see documented procedures at our school on how they would respond to various safety scenarios. I would like to see that the school adminnistrators had a proactive relationship with MPD and FBI so they know what to do.

Deterrents. Predators choose environments that will be easier to achieve their objectives. A loosely monitored, family environment where a manipulative person can thrive is obvisouly attractive. What deterrents can we put in place to make our school less attractive? Will it reduce the likliehood to zero, probably not, but maybe that predator will choose to go elsewhere.

Policies that disallow school employees from taking babysitting, tutoring, or other positions off campus is a good one. Policies that restrict school employees from engaging with children without a parent or guardian present would also achieve some level of protection.

Computer monitoring is common in corporate environments and employees are notified. There are many tools to monitor and capture network traffic and files. This can help if an investigation needs to occur and probably more important is a deterrent. It was pretty brazen for this individual to use a school camera that shows a level of comfort or belief that no know one was looking.

Video cameras in areas of the school that could be "private".

Staffing situations and physical layout of rooms to reduce situations where a teacher can be alone with a student. Many offices use frosted or glass for office areas not only to let light in but reduce the risk of sexual harrassement claims and boost productivity.

A school with those protections in place might not look so great to a predator.

Jsteele's article is very good. I just hope that the discussion shifts towards things we can do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I personally don't care about the reputation of the school one way or the other. Full disclosure and media attention is important, IMO, so that we can find ways to prevent this in the future...

Education. I read somewhere that the worst message to kids back in the 70s was "stranger danger". The % show that a predator is much more likely to be someone who knows and is close to the child. Are there updated education programs that can help teach our children to know what is happening, talk to a parent, and have the tools to protect themselves? Classes for parents, kids, brochures? Every school has a school counselor, is there a way to train school pyschologists to recognize patterns of behavior?

Coordination with authorities. Did the school know what to do and involve the police as soon as possible? I would like to see documented procedures at our school on how they would respond to various safety scenarios. I would like to see that the school adminnistrators had a proactive relationship with MPD and FBI so they know what to do...

I agree with this poster. As a reference, Gavin de Becker's book "Protecting the Gift" has good insights about how to protect children.

One of the most disturbing things to me about this situation is the report that there were reportedly some dynamics in terms of how this teacher allegedly interacted with children (playing favorites and engaging in behaviors that caused children to feel pitted against each other, etc.). According to some earlier posts on this thread, some parents were seriously distressed about this teacher's patterns of interaction with the children. These types of things should have been red flags to administrators. So, either they were not perceived as the red flags they should have been, or they were - and perhaps led to the schools decision not to renew the teachers contract but did not lead the school to be as proactive as necessary about protecting children earlier? Who knows. I don't. But, contrary to many assertions in this thread that this could "happen anywhere" and the implication that the alleged photographing and touching of children occurred out of the blue, it sounds like there were some earlier behavioral and contextual hints about that were not taken as seriously as they should have been.

And, while I will give the administrators the benefit of the doubt of trying best to protect the students when they confronted the teacher, the fact is that they should have waited until the police were present to do so. There were other ways to separate the teacher from the children in the meanwhile.

[Anonymous]

What is NOT happening here is Beauvoir simply coming out and saying they are SORRY that a child/children were abused int his manner, that they will be dooing xyz to make sure it happens again and will be holding this teacher completely accountable for his actions. Their silence is not defendable. Their silence speaks more to me than any form letter ever could. They should be on the news and in the papers apologizing for letting a very young child be victimized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is NOT happening here is Beauvoir simply coming out and saying they are SORRY that a child/children were abused int his manner, that they will be dooing xyz to make sure it happens again and will be holding this teacher completely accountable for his actions. Their silence is not defendable. Their silence speaks more to me than any form letter ever could. They should be on the news and in the papers apologizing for letting a very young child be victimized.

Sorry, that this does NOT happen again.

[Anonymous]

12:02: Beauvoir has not been silent at all. The Beauvoir community has been kept well informed of ongoing developments.

I do not believe it is known if the child or children had anything to do with Beauvoir. Therefore, an apology is unneccessary. The letters we received cearly stated that the teacher is under investigation by the police and will be held accountable if guilty. These letters were not form letters, but informative, thoughtful letters which listed resources and invited us to contact Ms. Carreiro or other administrators with any questions or concerns.

I have to say I don't see why people want the school to issue press releases / seek media attention. It's a private school. The Beauvoir community has been kept well informed and a meeting was held this week for all concerned. Aside from timely communication and cooperation with the police / FBI and the school community, I don't see why anyone else has a need to know the details, especially if its release would compromise the police investigation. The school has been as forthcoming as it needs to be.

Note that the majority of posts from Beauvoir parents are unhappy about what happened and understandably outraged at the person responsible but comfortable with the actions taken thus far. Seems like the stakeholders are satisfied that the school is handling things appropriately.

[Anonymous]

Policies that disallow school employees from taking babysitting, tutoring, or other positions off campus is a good one. Policies that restrict school employees from engaging with children without a parent or guardian present would also achieve some level of protection.

I agree that these are important precautions - but the parents should be enforcing them, the school cannot do it all. A teacher may teach piano lessons on the weekend to earn extra money if they want to - a school cannot stop that. We, as parents, need to take responsibility for safeguarding our children, too.

Schools should take precauctions, like many including Beauvoir do, such as background checks, mutliple teachers in the classroom, additional roaming resource teachers who pop-in and supervise, anonymous teacher feedback. We as parents are responsible for finding out what procedures are in place at our child's school to ensure it's adequate. But, the reality is that all of those things won't prevent this from happening unless we are vigilant about our childrens' activities outside of school.

This situation appears likely to have happened outside of school - the images were discovered on Monday AM according to reports. We need to focus on the after school timeframe - individual lessons, tutoring, sleepovers at friends' houses, sleepaway camps, etc. This situation has served as a wake-up call to me to re-evaluate my childrens' extra-curricular activities and I hope everyone else will, too.

[Anonymous]

" agree that these are important precautions - but the parents should be enforcing them, the school cannot do it all. A teacher may teach piano lessons on the weekend to earn extra money if they want to - a school cannot stop that. We, as parents, need to take responsibility for safeguarding our children, too. "

I completely agree but think the school should set the policy, explain, and discuss it with parents. This would not have occured to me without thinking about this type of incident and I'm sure it doesn't occur to most parents.

I wonder whether all background checks are equally useful. It seems that there are many different levels and different companies that provide different levels of information. Just hearing that a school does a background check may not be helpful if they simply have a bargain basement type. The background check that the govt did for my husband's clearance was very extensive. I doubt schools can go to this level but there should be some level above a simply arrest and credit report. I think some backgroun checks check educational credentials or work history. There may be other services that check references more thoroughly to make sure the work history is not only valid but the person providing the reference was indeed the supervisor at the time.

This teacher will mostly likely try to resume teaching with the same age group elsewhere. He does not have a conviction yet but he does has a work history that includes immediate termination. This should be a red flag for another school looking to hire him but he may not include this work history. A basic, cheap background check would not reveal he falsified his resume but other services might.

[Anonymous]

I doubt he will ever be able to teach again under this name if not acquitted.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
This teacher will mostly likely try to resume teaching with the same age group elsewhere. He does not have a conviction yet but he does has a work history that includes immediate termination. This should be a red flag for another school looking to hire him but he may not include this work history. A basic, cheap background check would not reveal he falsified his resume but other services might.

My understanding is that the teacher had already tendered his resignation because he had taken another job. I do not believe he has been officially terminated from Beauvoir, but rather placed on administrative leave. In future work histories, he will need to account for his years at Beauvoir (3, I believe). Any serious background check would begin with confirming his work history. Also, while he does not have a conviction at the moment, the investigation is not complete. It is too early to speculate, but he may well have a conviction before long.

[Anonymous]

I'm part of the Beauvoir parent family. My view is that the school had handled it as well as possible. The photos came to light and the teacher was immediately removed from the school (thus protecting children from harm) and the police were immediately notified. I dont know if the school could have reasonably detained the teacher until the police came, or whether the police would have responded to the call with lights and sirens urgency, but from my perspective its irrelevant but the school administrators responded by using their best judgement.

At this point, I dont believe there is evidence that the pictures are of a current or former Beauvoir student, or is there evidence that they were taken on school property. Also, as I understand it, there is no direct evidence (witness, testimony, etc) that the teacher in question is responsible. There is, however, circumstantial evidence that the teacherhad something to do with the picutures (apparently the camera was under his control just prior to the pictures being discovered).