There is no outrage left. Despite years of proof, including improper maintenance of buses, letting bullies get more and more out of hand, and the fact we are graduating students who are unable to read, we all wanted to believe that schools were basically looking out for our children. After a terrible tragedy in Georgia, there is no longer any way to believe that.
The details themselves are unbelievable, but no one contests the basic facts. The sequence of events went as follows:
- A 15-year-old male was accused of assaulting young women in the bathroom.
- The school refused to do anything about the young man because there were no witnesses.
- A school employee urged a young girl to go into the bathroom and risk getting assaulted so the assailant could be caught red-handed.
- The principal went along with the plan, assigning staff to the bathroom to intervene at the last moment to protect the girl.
- No staff showed up in the bathroom to prevent the assault.
- The young woman was assaulted.
There have always been derelictions of duties, and there will always be so. There are always bad apples who risk spoiling the bunch. This does not seem like the case of one bad apple. Multiple staff members were consulted and all agreed to a plan that put an innocent young woman at great risk. This is a systemic problem, and similar problems seem to exist in far too many of our schools.
As parents we put a great deal of trust in our public education system, but we have now been let down so many times that something must be done. Sadly, it seems that it is often up to the courts that can make the schools answer for their behavior. If your child has been injured while attending school, please contact a lawyer to help you pressure the school to make the necessary changes to protect all our children.