Reply to Sidwell Sex Scandal

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Sidwell Sex Scandal"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you think these things dont happen at your school - you are wrong.  Its just all magnified because of the status of SFS.[/quote]

It would be naïve to think that we know everything that goes on at every school.  In fact, schools, parents and students all work to keep their dirty laundry hidden since everyone has a lot invested in the reputation of a school.  That is why we probably know very little of what goes on within other schools.  What we do happen to learn usually comes out when someone has an axe to grind against the school or when a crime occurs.  A brief review:

Landon SAT scandal: disgruntled parent/lawsuit
Landon fantasy draft: disgruntled parent
Georgetown Prep pedophile: crime
George Hugley: crime
Al Gore’s son – crime
Beauvoir pedohile: crime
Cathedral sexcapdes - disgruntled parent
Sidwell pedophile –crime
Sidwell sex scandal: lawsuit
Sidwell 8th grade girls – disgruntled teacher

I think it is fair to conclude that a scandal is magnified when there is some connection to a famous person – Al Gore’s son, for example, or President Obama’s daughter’s classmates – because the scandal catches the attention of the national media.  But the local attention will be great at any of the elite private schools.  So the challenge for these elite schools is to keep their dirty laundry out of the public view.
[/quote]

Actually, I think the root of what happens is not criminal ( though in some examples above a crime is eventually committed) The root/ start of the  problem is people within a school ( both admin and parents) not only don't maintain professional boundaries, but "trade on" the influence of their position within the school for their personal advantage. Such as:

1) Toth: he used his position as a tutor to gain parent's trust , and then traded on those "connections" with rich and influential parents to gain a position at a DC private school. Had that kind of "trading in influence" not been cottoned to at that school, Toth never would have been hired. Then, he again inappropriately baby sat for his own students, often for free, and that conflict of interest and coarse of professional boundaries was not abruptly identified and put a stop to. Eventually, there were tragic results, but do you see where it all started and should have been stopped: with pushy parents trying to do him a favor and with admin listening to those parents d/t the un towered $$$ influence of those parents.

2) Huntington: again, it seems , imho, from his emails shared on this thread that he used  his role as school psychologist to curry the favor of at least one parent, prey on her needs for validation about her child , and then crossed a professional boundary by beginning a sexual relationship with her. No doubt there were other parents who's "favor" he also cultivated though the end game might not have been sex, just plain protection of or advancement of his position within the Sidwell administration.  That makes him pretty hard to fire, ya' know.

When high powered parents meet lower paid teachers/ admin , there need to be a carefully held code of ethics, not to mention some basic training in how to manage a school, not just " network with rich parents"

This is not how true professionals behave.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics