Reply to Whitman Teacher and Crew Coach Arrested

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Whitman Teacher and Crew Coach Arrested"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a little uncomfortable with the suggestion that the victims' parents weren't sufficiently on the case. Obviously, the Whitman parent who showed up in the zoom and made clear she monitored the communications deterred Shipley from pursuing her daughter as a victim.  But I had three athletes go through Whitman, and I think each of them would have been uncomfortable with me getting between them and their coaches in this way.  WW Football made it clear--we don't want to hear from parents if your kid isn't getting the look or the playtime.  The relationship has to be between player and coach, etc.  That instilled in me early on a hands-off approach.  To be clear, we absolutely need to change the system and heighten awareness of these terrible grooming situations.  But without having heightened that awareness, and while we're still learning, I don't think it's okay to smugly blame the parents of these girls or to suggest they weren't sufficiently on the case.

[/quote]

People are not, overall, smugly blaming the parents of these girls. I have been following this thread all along, and I can't recall that being a theme of the posts (perhaps it was here or there, but I don't see it as a persistent theme). Several PPs have pointed out, on the other hand, that parents can be groomed as well, and as such become vulnerable to the predator and unwillingly, unwittingly provide fertile ground for the predator's actions.

I think people are also saying that parents should not let things slide--like private texts, rides--when they're aware of them. I am not sure what 'sufficiently on the case' entails. Other Whitman parent said red flags were going off right away. Parents not paying attention to instances where these red flags occurred, that's problematic. But it's also understandable--we're a very busy society, and as you point out, parents want to give teens their space. Going further, parents who don't even see these flags happen in the first place (e.g. private texts, rides, whatnot)... I'd guess that's either because the predator is able to operate stealthily enough, or because the parent is distracted (understandable--could be many things happening w/parent), absent (sad, understandable), disengaged (perhaps less understandable), or perhaps uninformed (e.g. does not realize a ride is against MCPS rules). Who knows which of the reasons applied to the parents of Shipley's victims.

There has got to be a middle ground between '100% [private] coach-to-student communications only' vs. 'parent always communicates with the coach on behalf of student'. I can see that the latter would be a nightmare if the parent was a helicopter parent, for example.

And you say that the relationship is between student and coach, which I get, but 'communications' isn't the same as a 'relationship'. Off the field, what communication needs to occur that a parent can't hear? Presumably the 1:1 relationship-building communication can be done at practices. At other times, do coaches communicate things other than logistics, schedules, etc? Can parents not be copied in, or could these not occur via group texts?[/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