Reply to Whitman Teacher and Crew Coach Arrested

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
+1. [b]Whitman parent PP, your DD was a grooming target of Shipley's as well, it appears. [/b]If you read things like the article I posted upthread from the New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/09/24/in-plain-view), you can see that the predator plays the long game and casts a very wide net (being a teacher/coach allows them to do that--so many students, new ones every year). They proceed gradually, step by step, to gain the confidence of the victim--and often the parents--by tiptoeing over the line, a small line each time, and perhaps the tiptoeing is a grey area.

You say, "he was the only teacher who seemed to care." For Shipley, having you and DD consider him that way means that he [u]scored[/u] (regardlesss of whether her "hard time" was academic or social in nature):
-He gets your daughter to open up to him, and so gets to know her vulnerabilities. 
-He gets to see what kind of support systems she has. 
-He finds out how strong these systems  might be ('[i]children of vigilant parents are deemed to risky[/I]', to paraphrase the article). 
-He finds out what kind of boundaries she has, what kind of instincts she has... e.g. whether she appears uncomfortable when he crosses a teeny line (maybe a small comment by him that could be taken in different ways). 
-He ends up with an image of "caring"/ "trusted helper" in your/DD's eyes which can offset any red flags that occur--even you admit that he was known to favor female students; I assume your DD, and possibly you as well, knew this at the time he helped with her issue...but she/(+you?) were willing to not question that, because during this time he was so helpful, right?
-He gets DD to share with her friends how understanding and "caring" he is, so that other students can come to him with their troubles.
-He gets one more person in the school community to become his defender if his actions are ever challenged.

For your DD's sake and the sake of your family, I'm glad nothing went further. It appears from your perspective that he didn't cross any obvious lines as she continued to interact with him for a while. [b]Maybe it's because he sensed you were an involved parent, maybe because he saw your DD as someone who had a good instinct for what was appropriate or not. [/b]Maybe it was because he was in the process of getting sexually involved with one of the other victims and couldn't afford to open up another avenue to explore that might take more time and risk. For whatever reason, the fact that you/DD didn't see his actions as inappropriate doesn't mean that this behavior is ok and that he should be considered in the 'caring' /'great teacher' light.

I'll bet if you asked your DD about the specific questions, framing, etc. of their conversations, if she remembered them precisely (which she understandably may not), you could see that [b]he was probing at least a little[/b]. You didn't say that she took a class from him. If she didn't ....you didn't find it unusual that a teacher who didn't have her for a class was the only one willing to help? Why would the other teachers/staff 'not have cared'? Perhaps she had a tip from other girls to go to him first? Or she found his warm, friendly manner very approachable and sought him out, and his prompt responsiveness made her not need to find other caring teachers/staff? Perhaps teachers/staff at the school are overwhelmed by kids facing issues like the one your DD was facing, and it's general practice for them just to keep a little distance (for their own self-preservation of time/energy)?

[b]In hindsight, do you still think it's ok that he was so caring to your DD?[/b]

The underlined statement from the immediate PP is very astute and spot-on: "For the majority of cases, predators violate the Code of Conduct before abusing a child. Waiting for the arrest to happen means MCPS missed an opportunity to protect a child before the abuse occurred."[/quote]

Yes, sadly, I can only assume my child was a grooming target. I can only assume that he probed a little and pushed the limits. My point was not to defend him, but to highlight how difficult it is for a parent to identify this behavior in the moment. At a time when my own child was struggling with personal issues, which spilled over into academic issues, it was awfully hard to know whether her teacher was a "good guy" who helped her, or just a bad guy trying to groom her. Hindsight is 20/20.

I will say that my mom radar sent up a red flag, as it does anytime an older man pays attention to my daughter, in any context. So I popped in to say hello on their video chats. (Video chats with teachers were common when school was virtual due to covid.) I emailed him separately (and let him know that I monitored her email). I asked friends who taught at the school whether I should be worried. Perhaps the most important thing was that I told my daughter that teachers are not allowed to text students, or take them anywhere. If he did so, I wanted to know about it. Maybe he sensed a vigilant parent and just backed off - I don't know - but as a result I never saw any red flags to report.

At the end of the day, even assuming his motives were impure, he gave her very mature and responsible advice and she straightened herself out. So I feel pretty mixed. I would hate for the takeaway to be that teachers should never help students outside the classroom. The whole thing is just heartbreaking and sad.

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