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Feb. 8, 2013
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Jewish World Review
Feb 6, 2012/ 13 Shevat, 5772
Safeguarding Kids No Match for Following Procedure
By
Arnold Ahlert
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The train wreck known as our unionized public school system has regurgitated some especially disturbing news from time to time, about some seriously disturbed people. But the stories recounted here, which range from the truly annoying to the mind-numbingly horrifying, demonstrate two realities. First, there are some genuinely twisted individuals in classrooms who manage to elude all the purported safeguards designed to protect the kids. Second, the combination of union clout and inept bureaucratic procedures have produced a system of public school education that doesn't need to be reformed. It needs to be blown up and re-configured from scratch, starting with one non-negotiable element: public service unions must be entirely eliminated from the equation. When you read these stories, bear in mind the oft-repeated slogan of unionized educrats, along with their bureaucratic and political enablers: the kids come first.
Beginning on the East Coast, we have Exhibit A for everything that's wrong with unionization. Alan Rosenfeld, 66, deemed a "danger to kids" keeps getting a paycheck ten years after being removed from the classroom. Seems Al liked ogling eighth-grade girls' butts at IS 347 in Queens. The Department of Education bungled their case against him, so he can't be fired. What does Al do all day? He manages his real estate portfolio, reportedly worth $10 million. And for those who think teachers are underpaid, it should be noted that Al pulls in $100,049 a year in salary--in addition to health benefits, a pension that increases $1700 a year for each year he remains in the system, vacation pay, and 100 days of unused sick pay for which he will be compensated when he retires.
And Al's the good news. Two parents from a kindergarten class in Washington Heights have filed notices of claim against the city for $5 million apiece. They allege that a group of 5-year-olds removed their pants and engaged in sex acts under their desks. All of it occurred despite the teacher being present in the classroom. "They were exposing themselves and showing their body parts to each other. From what I understand, they were kissing and touching," one of the parents told the NY Post.
The other parent said her son told her about this activity last October. She reported it to the school, which documented it in a December report. That same report noted that the school did not notify the NYPD or the school superintendent, and that parents of the other kids involved weren't notified until Jan. 3. "They didn't notify the parents immediately or stop it from occurring for months," said Marc Held, lawyer for both moms.
In the world of unionized education and sclerotic bureaucracy this is what is known as "following procedure."
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Perhaps one needs a little more convincing. Let's move to the West Coast. Two teachers at Miramonte Elementary School have been accused of things that make one's skin crawl. Martin Springer, who was arrested Friday, is suspected of fondling two girls over a period of three years. Each of the girls was reportedly 7-years-old, and the fondling allegedly took place in a classroom.
And, hard as it may be to believe, Springer's small potatoes compared to Mark Berndt. Berndt has been charged with 23 counts of committing lewd acts on boys and girls, ages 6 to 10, from 2005-2010. Accusations include taking more than 400 photographs of blindfolded, bound and gagged children, some of whom were posed with giant cockroaches sitting on their faces and mouths. He is also accused of of feeding his semen to blindfolded children in a "tasting game" and possibly as a coating on cookies. How do investigators know it was semen? A detective found a blue spoon apparently hidden in a trash can that appeared to be the one seen in the photographs. Analysis determined there was semen on the spoon and DNA testing matched it to Berndt, authorities said.
Sadly, investigators had recommended a sex charge involving a 10-year-old girl be filed against Berndt back in 1994, when he allegedly tried to grope the girl's genitals during class then, but prosecutors decided not to pursue the case.
The good news: Berndt is being held on $23 million bail and faces several life sentences if convicted. The bad news: although the school board dismissed Berndt a year ago, he was never officially fired. Like any good unionist, he challenged the board's findings and, while awaiting a hearing, he resigned. Thus, he gets to keep his lifetime health benefits, along with a lifetime pension worth $3,891.17 per month, earned through contributions and length of service in accordance with the California State Teachers' Retirement System regulations. On top of that, in order to protect Berndt's rights, parents, other than those of the victims, weren't notified that a former teacher was taking pictures of students to satisfy his sexual urges, until a year after it happened.
Miramonte Principal Martin Sandoval told reporters that he followed proper school district procedure.
I'll bet he did. But it gets even worse. Two former Berndt students told the LA Times they reported behavior to a school counselor back in 1990 that included Berndt moving his hands under his desk, near his lap, at the front of the classroom. They also told the counselor that they had seen a jar of Vaseline in one of his desk compartments.
The counselor's alleged reaction? She told the girls "it's not very good to make stories up" and that it was their "imagination" that led them to make the report. "It was never talked about again," one of the witnesses told the newspaper.
Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. John Deasy told the LA Times he was struggling to determine how the alleged behavior went undetected for so long. "How do I make sense out of the fact that this took place over a number of years and no one seemed to know about that?" Deasy asked. "I'm definitely trying to understand how someone could not have known."
But "they" did know, John. In 1990, a counselor blew off three young girls because they were "imagining things" and in 1994 the prosecutors decided there was insufficient evidence to prove a crime had occurred because, while the alleged incident took place in September 1993, it wasn't reported by the girl's mother to school officials at until the following January.
No doubt they were all following procedure.
Can it get any worse? Maybe not, unless you're one particular young girl. She was in Mark Berndt's second grade class in 2008. One day she came home from school and showed her parents a picture of her eating a cookie with a "gleaming, light-colored substance visible" that we now know wasn't icing. So what happened? She was transferred to Martin Springer's class, where her father alleges Springer touched her on her leg and thigh. Incredibly, the LA Times revealed that the two teachers knew each other--and took school children on at least two field trips together.
Give New York City an atom of credit regarding Alan Rosenfeld. At least they got him away from the kids. What the hell were the school officials in LA thinking, regarding Mark Berndt? At the very least, they knew something wasn't right with this guy 17 years ago, but they let him stay in the classroom regardless. Why?
Bet your life "procedure" had something to do with it.
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Previously:
01/29/11: 2016: R.I.P. GOP
01/26/11: Obama's Happy Talk Versus Bernanke's Action
01/23/11: South Carolina Goes for the Media-Masher
01/17/11: Nuking the Strait of Hormuz?
01/09/11: Coercion and Incentive Are Not Interchangeable Terms
01/06/11: Will We Retire Obama --- or the Constitution?
01/03/11: Dumb -- or ‘Disabled?’
12/27/11: Islamists ‘Celebrate’ Christmas
12/19/11: A Deficiency of Decency
12/16/11: Better a A War On Whiners Than Christmas
12/12/11: Anybody But Obama
12/07/11: Connecting the Feckless Foreign Policy Dots
12/05/11: Can We Keep Our Republic?
11/28/11: Cyber Crack-heads
11/21/11: Water Water Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Think
11/18/11: Walking along Avenue J(ew)
11/09/11: Military Scandal, Media Blackout
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10/31/11: Camping Out in La-La Land
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10/13/11: Are Colleges Too Big to Fail?
10/11/11: Why aren't they upset when their child is mugged in school?
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© 2011, Arnold Ahlert
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