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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] ... What would concern me if I was a parent there is this direction to call Bryan with any report of abuse and then he goes to the board who then go to the police.  It might be well intentioned, but it also could be a way to buy some time before police are called.  It also sets up a process with so many people involved that a victim could worry about loss of privacy and reprisals. It's nice to let parents know that they can call the head of school and the complaint will be taken seriously, but parents should also be told to call the police if their child says she or he has been abused by an adult, including a teacher.[/quote]
+1 from a Sidwell parent. To me, that was the one weird line of an otherwise very effective letter.

I don't even know Bryan. You can be sure that if my child came home with reports of this kind of thing, he is not the first person I would call.[/quote]
NP.  FWIW, I didn't read that letter as suggesting parents shouldn't contact the police whenever they want.  Sounded to me like it was just making clear that anything and everything could be brought to the school.  Of course if my child reports clearcut abuse I'm going to the police immediately.  But I can imagine lots of gray-area situations where it's not totally clear whether anything improper occurred or where there's a he-said/she-said dynamic.  Heck, gray-area situations like that get presented and debated endlessly on DCUM all the time.  Just to make up one hypothetical, suppose your child came home and said he thought he overheard another student arranging an after-school meetup with a teacher.  Or another ... suppose your child came home to say she thought a teacher might be flirting with her.  Are you going to call the police in either of those situations?  Not likely.  But if I were running a school, I'd surely want to hear about either of those situations so the school could investigate, and also so the school could perhaps spot a pattern of suspicious behavior even if isolated situations have innocent-sounding excuses.  I think it's good for any school to try to encourage a "see something, say something" attitude among parents and students.[/quote]

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