Anonymous wrote:Something may or may not have happened to this child. Generally, I would say you believe a kid when they tell you something happens. But The school, police, investigators, etc. need some evidence to accuse someone and it seems pretty clear there is no evidence. Whether that’s because the victim waited too long and video footage was erased or the incident did not happen as the child said, the result is the same. As a parent with multiple kids in the school, I think the school handled this as they should have and feel that the family choosing to send out this email was inappropriate.

But they have to PURSUE evidence and it’s pretty clear they interviewed no students or faculty in their “investigation”. You can in good faith say there’s no evidence when you don’t look for it under the guise of confidentiality.

I just feel so bad for the family. They are dealing with so much. To have to resort to the anonymous email means they are desperate to know if anyone in the community has heard anything. If there are two current students who took part in this, someone will talk or will have talked about it. Hopefully someone steps forward.

GDS handling of this has been over-lawyered and ham-fisted and duplicitous. For the board to ignore the family for months and Russell to stop communicating with them, I can't imagine their frustration.

I'm a long time GDS parent and I as sickened by Russell's first email esp the line in bold "Contrary to the information shared with you earlier, we can report that neither T&M (the independent investigator) nor the MPD found evidence during their investigations to substantiate the allegations."

This was at the top of his first email and the bolding and phrasing said to the family and all GDS families that "We protect the institution over any one child" and we dont believe victims.

He never once in the first email said how much they care / cared for the victim. Only in the Friday clean up email did his lawyers and crisis PR people have that.

Where is the non-student paper media on this?

I think we need a mindset shift.

The questions for schools imo are:
1) how can we set up schools so that predators can’t easily operate
2) how can we set up schools so that as many types of allegations as possible can be substantiated or disproven

The answers to question 1 will be familiar to anyone who has been in schools or sports in recent years. We don’t have 1:1 meetings with kids that aren’t observable and interruptible, or we just don’t have them. We do a much better job than in the past of tracking where everyone is. We use video.

I think the answer to 2 is some of the same. It makes sense to me that schools should have cameras outside the entrances and exits to private areas, just like they have them outside entrances and exits of the school. It’s no longer prohibitively expensive to store that data. Hopefully you never need it. But when you do, it’s there.

I know there is fear and concern and general unhappiness about being videoed, at least at first. But ultimately I think it helps everyone, even though it has the potential for misuse like anything else.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the head of school going to resign? What about the pattern of kids getting ambushed in the bathroom?

Is this a regular thing ? Is there physical aggression involved? I don’t know the answer that’s why I am asking .

um GDS bathrooms are notoriously worse then public schools. My kids first day in 9th he was asked to vape.

I hope we can all agree that vaping in the 9th grade bathroom is not proof that there Is a pattern of abuse in the middle school bathroom. These are not even remotely the same things.

It is amazing how many people on this forum so quickly latch on to the conjecture and unsubstantiated allegations of anonymous keyboard warriors.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the head of school going to resign? What about the pattern of kids getting ambushed in the bathroom?

Is this a regular thing ? Is there physical aggression involved? I don’t know the answer that’s why I am asking .

um GDS bathrooms are notoriously worse then public schools. My kids first day in 9th he was asked to vape.

lol you sweet summer child.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the head of school going to resign? What about the pattern of kids getting ambushed in the bathroom?

Is this a regular thing ? Is there physical aggression involved? I don’t know the answer that’s why I am asking .

um GDS bathrooms are notoriously worse then public schools. My kids first day in 9th he was asked to vape.

This is a MS bathroom, not HS. And sadly vaping occurs in all HS bathrooms, public and private.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the head of school going to resign? What about the pattern of kids getting ambushed in the bathroom?

Is this a regular thing ? Is there physical aggression involved? I don’t know the answer that’s why I am asking .

um GDS bathrooms are notoriously worse then public schools. My kids first day in 9th he was asked to vape.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something may or may not have happened to this child. Generally, I would say you believe a kid when they tell you something happens. But The school, police, investigators, etc. need some evidence to accuse someone and it seems pretty clear there is no evidence. Whether that’s because the victim waited too long and video footage was erased or the incident did not happen as the child said, the result is the same. As a parent with multiple kids in the school, I think the school handled this as they should have and feel that the family choosing to send out this email was inappropriate.

I understand the reaction to say the email from the parents was inappropriate, but putting myself in their shoes, I can see how this family- feeling that they are all victims- did this too exert some control in telling their story, reclaim some pride, and to see if it leads to their child’s assailant being identified. I get it. And at the same time, I don’t think the school has been negligent.

Hmm. I think they did it because they said they waived privacy rights to warn parents that this scary incident happened in the school.

If it happened a second time and then these parents spoke up, people would rightly be furious at them and the school for not mentioning a prior incident.

Anonymous wrote:Something may or may not have happened to this child. Generally, I would say you believe a kid when they tell you something happens. But The school, police, investigators, etc. need some evidence to accuse someone and it seems pretty clear there is no evidence. Whether that’s because the victim waited too long and video footage was erased or the incident did not happen as the child said, the result is the same. As a parent with multiple kids in the school, I think the school handled this as they should have and feel that the family choosing to send out this email was inappropriate.

I understand the reaction to say the email from the parents was inappropriate, but putting myself in their shoes, I can see how this family- feeling that they are all victims- did this too exert some control in telling their story, reclaim some pride, and to see if it leads to their child’s assailant being identified. I get it. And at the same time, I don’t think the school has been negligent.

Anonymous wrote:In typical fashion for this forum, the conversation has devolved into vitriol among anonymous people mostly because of semantics. I believe all of us can agree that this is a horrible story on many levels. The family has every reason to believe this happened, and it is a trauma no child or parent should have to endure. I can understand their anger with the school and disappointment with the police. Without evidence, the police cannot identify a suspect. And due to privacy laws the school could not publicize this or expel a perpetrator. And yes, it’s horrible that- assuming this happened- the perpetrators are still there.

The school could expel the perpetrators (if they exist). Not sure why you say they couldn’t. Private schools expel kids all the time and the notion that GDS has identified perpetrators and done nothing just defies belief. If it is a more complicated situation (like the child was being bullied and the kids followed him into the bathroom but dispute what actually happened) then everyone in the school would know who the suspects are.

Anonymous wrote:Is the head of school going to resign? What about the pattern of kids getting ambushed in the bathroom?

There is no evidence that there is a “pattern” of kids getting ambushed. Where does this even come from?

In typical fashion for this forum, the conversation has devolved into vitriol among anonymous people mostly because of semantics. I believe all of us can agree that this is a horrible story on many levels. The family has every reason to believe this happened, and it is a trauma no child or parent should have to endure. I can understand their anger with the school and disappointment with the police. Without evidence, the police cannot identify a suspect. And due to privacy laws the school could not publicize this or expel a perpetrator. And yes, it’s horrible that- assuming this happened- the perpetrators are still there.

Something may or may not have happened to this child. Generally, I would say you believe a kid when they tell you something happens. But The school, police, investigators, etc. need some evidence to accuse someone and it seems pretty clear there is no evidence. Whether that’s because the victim waited too long and video footage was erased or the incident did not happen as the child said, the result is the same. As a parent with multiple kids in the school, I think the school handled this as they should have and feel that the family choosing to send out this email was inappropriate.

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Anonymous wrote:If I were a GDS parent I would support the school in denying any wrongdoing in order to h avoid any liability and avoid paying the family compensation for the incident. Specially if there is no hard evidence.

You have it backwards. If there were any hint of this actually having happened the school would have paid (its insurance actually) asap. The blunt fact is that this attack was fabricated by the child and then magnified by the parent/s. There are so many examples of this (Washington Hebrew for one). The rape never happened - this is obvious.

You really don’t know enough to conclude that. You just don’t want to believe the victim.

I think it’s pretty clear. And no, I don’t think an abstraction like “believe victims” should be used to assess situations like this. It sounds like they believed the victim to an appropriate degree (ie open an investigation) and found nothing credible. Purported victims don’t have some kind of never-ending presumption of credibility in all cases.

I agree with that, but a the same time the school doesn’t seem to have much empathy with the incident or intentions to reinforce protocol to prevent a similar scenario in the future. Family is wrong school is right.

The incident being a false allegation? Yes I imagine the school is now going to install cameras to protect itself.

Would you stop gaslighting? The victim was a small child.

The child clearly has some needs but no reason to believe anything like a rape happened at GDS.

You sound like the perpetrator. Seriously though, I hope you are not allowed within a thousand feet of any school.

+100

Someone is a perpetrator because they are they observe there is no evidence to support the allegation? What?

Can you please explain concretely what makes you so sure this assault happened - is there anything else other than just your moral belief that all allegations are true?

You are pushing a false narrative.

It has already been explained ad nauseum. Feigning ignorance is even more disgusting behavior.

Where was it explained and what is the false narrative? I didn’t see that anywhere in this thread.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I were a GDS parent I would support the school in denying any wrongdoing in order to h avoid any liability and avoid paying the family compensation for the incident. Specially if there is no hard evidence.

You have it backwards. If there were any hint of this actually having happened the school would have paid (its insurance actually) asap. The blunt fact is that this attack was fabricated by the child and then magnified by the parent/s. There are so many examples of this (Washington Hebrew for one). The rape never happened - this is obvious.

You really don’t know enough to conclude that. You just don’t want to believe the victim.

I think it’s pretty clear. And no, I don’t think an abstraction like “believe victims” should be used to assess situations like this. It sounds like they believed the victim to an appropriate degree (ie open an investigation) and found nothing credible. Purported victims don’t have some kind of never-ending presumption of credibility in all cases.

I agree with that, but a the same time the school doesn’t seem to have much empathy with the incident or intentions to reinforce protocol to prevent a similar scenario in the future. Family is wrong school is right.

The incident being a false allegation? Yes I imagine the school is now going to install cameras to protect itself.

Would you stop gaslighting? The victim was a small child.

The child clearly has some needs but no reason to believe anything like a rape happened at GDS.

You sound like the perpetrator. Seriously though, I hope you are not allowed within a thousand feet of any school.

+100

Someone is a perpetrator because they are they observe there is no evidence to support the allegation? What?

Can you please explain concretely what makes you so sure this assault happened - is there anything else other than just your moral belief that all allegations are true?

You are pushing a false narrative.

It has already been explained ad nauseum. Feigning ignorance is even more disgusting behavior.