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Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal Bonus Episode two,

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Speaker 1: Educator sexual Misconduct. We've addressed betrayal in various ways during

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Speaker 1: the series, and we've heard from many of you that

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Speaker 1: personally identified with Rachel, the victim that Spencer Heron was

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Speaker 1: convicted of sexually assaulting at Kel High School. During our production,

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Speaker 1: we've learned more about how pervasive educator sexual misconduct is.

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Speaker 2: Sexual misconduct is a range of verbal, visual, and natory

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Speaker 2: and physical behaviors that are sexualized. Interactions with students in schools,

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Speaker 2: anything from language to students that is sexualized, asking them

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Speaker 2: what they like to do for sex, what kind of

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Speaker 2: sex do they like, to things that are visual, for instance,

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Speaker 2: masturbating in front of students, never touching them, but masturbating

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Speaker 2: in front of them, or disrobing in front of them,

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Speaker 2: or sending them pictures of penises or breasts or vaginas,

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Speaker 2: and then physical assault issues like forced sex, or in

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Speaker 2: terms of miners, it may not be for sex. They're miners.

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Speaker 2: They may be confused. They're often told the person loves

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Speaker 2: them and cares for them, and they're going to get

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Speaker 2: married and things are going to be okay.

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Speaker 1: That's doctor Cheryl Shakeshaft. She's a professor of educational leadership

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Speaker 1: at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of a congressionally

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Speaker 1: mandated report an educators have misconduct. She's been studying school

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Speaker 1: employees sexual misconduct for more than twenty five years. Our

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Speaker 1: team reached out to her to learn more about the problem.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Sheakeschaff believes schools have not done nearly enough to

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Speaker 1: prevent educator sexual misconduct and that the onus is often

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Speaker 1: on the children to report. We have received so many

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Speaker 1: emails with similar stories to Rachel's, we thought it was

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Speaker 1: important to raise awareness to help students, parents and schools

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Speaker 1: be aware to avoid predators like Spencer.

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Speaker 2: We have expected the children to be the people who

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Speaker 2: police the school and prevent things from happening, so we

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Speaker 2: give them training about good touch, bad touch. Nothing wrong

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Speaker 2: with that. They should know those things absolutely, but adults

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Speaker 2: also need to know exactly what they should do when

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Speaker 2: they see things, when things are going on, when their

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Speaker 2: bystanders and stuff happens in front of them. They need

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Speaker 2: training to be able to understand what that means, you know,

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Speaker 2: not just say, oh, he's just a friendly teacher. He

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Speaker 2: hugs all the kids, or she just really likes her students,

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Speaker 2: and yes, she goes out of her way for them.

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Speaker 2: You know, they need to understand what the boundaries are,

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Speaker 2: that nobody gets to cross those boundaries, and that if

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Speaker 2: you see boundary crossing, you report it. And then the

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Speaker 2: people who gets reported to need to understand that if

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Speaker 2: there's a report, you need to actually do something. You

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Speaker 2: need to in most cases call the police and have

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Speaker 2: an investigation.

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Speaker 1: And sometimes even well meaning teachers don't understand the dynamics

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Speaker 1: of teachers who engage in sexual misconduct. We heard from

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Speaker 1: a teacher who joined the staff at Kel High School

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Speaker 1: after Spencer Hearn was arrested, and one of his comments

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Speaker 1: really stood out.

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Speaker 3: He wrote, many.

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Speaker 1: Teachers at Kel would tell me it didn't really believe

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Speaker 1: the charges, or that every story has two sides, and

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Speaker 1: it really made me feel uncomfortable because of deplorable charges.

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Speaker 1: I found it odd that so many employees were complacent

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Speaker 1: are passive about the story.

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Speaker 2: In schools, they often allowed teachers to break rules, taking

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Speaker 2: students in their cars, being alone with students behind closed

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Speaker 2: and locked doors in their rooms. Teachers see things of

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Speaker 2: their colleagues and they don't respond. I asked teachers did

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Speaker 2: you see anything, and they say, yes, I did. It

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Speaker 2: was you know, really irregular and not allowed behavior. And

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Speaker 2: then I say to the teacher, will did you report it?

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Speaker 2: And the teacher will say, well no, And then I

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Speaker 2: ask why and the teacher says, well, you know, if

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Speaker 2: I was wrong, I might get a colleague in trouble

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Speaker 2: and I didn't want to do that, and it's kind

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Speaker 2: of awkward, you know, we're friendly, and I just it

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Speaker 2: just I just didn't report. I've never heard a teacher

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Speaker 2: say yes, I reported, and I reported because even if

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Speaker 2: I'm wrong, I wanted to make sure that if something

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Speaker 2: was happening, somebody was looking into us. So the issue

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Speaker 2: is that in schools we don't do anything, and by

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Speaker 2: not doing anything, by not using prevention methods, we enable

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Speaker 2: those people who either intend to abuse or come around

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Speaker 2: to abusing, because they start crossing boundary after boundary after boundary,

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Speaker 2: and pretty soon there they are. We enable them. It's

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Speaker 2: like having roads with no stop signs.

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Speaker 3: Perhaps teachers don't know what they should say.

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Speaker 2: We need to practice the language of reporting, just get

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Speaker 2: people familiar with it. Instead of saying I don't think

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Speaker 2: this is really real. I mean I'm probably making something

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Speaker 2: out of nothing. I mean, it's just well, you know,

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Speaker 2: I really hate to bring this up, saying Harold has

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Speaker 2: his classroom across the hall from me, and I see

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Speaker 2: him there regularly alone with individual students. It concerns me.

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Speaker 2: Or I saw Janine having dinner with one of her

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Speaker 2: students and they were sitting really close together. I'm concerned.

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Speaker 2: We need to teach people to just give information and

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Speaker 2: then it's somebody to take the next step and investigate.

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Speaker 1: We asked doctor Shee Schaft, how can we change that

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Speaker 1: thinking and culture in schools.

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Speaker 2: Every school should have training, training about patterns and what

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Speaker 2: happens and what you're supposed to do as an adult.

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Speaker 2: Every school should have a set of behaviors so that

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Speaker 2: people understand what's acceptable and what's not acceptable between adults

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Speaker 2: and students. Many kids just think that it's okay. They say,

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Speaker 2: if this weren't okay, somebody would have stopped it. Everybody

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Speaker 2: sees how he acts or how she acts, so kids

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Speaker 2: don't really understand, and they think of it as dating.

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Speaker 2: They don't understand the issues. So the kids see it,

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Speaker 2: kids talk about it, they see it. They know stuff's

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Speaker 2: going on, but they don't report it because they don't

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Speaker 2: code it as something that is supposed to be reported

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Speaker 2: because no one's ever taught them.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Shakeshaft explains that there is training for sexual harassment,

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Speaker 1: but schools could do more.

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Speaker 2: When you ask most schools if they have training, they say, yes,

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Speaker 2: we have training. And then when you ask to see

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Speaker 2: the training, what you see is either training about sexual

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Speaker 2: harassment peer to peers, so the adults get training about

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Speaker 2: not harassing one of their colleagues, kids get training about

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Speaker 2: not harassing one of their peers, but neither get training

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Speaker 2: about the adult sexually harassing the student. Or they get

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Speaker 2: trained on mandated reporting. But mandated reporting training is about

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Speaker 2: reporting things that happen outside the school, not inside the school.

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Speaker 3: What else could schools do.

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Speaker 2: We need people who walk through the cafeteria at lunchtime

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Speaker 2: and look at what adults and students are doing. People

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Speaker 2: who when they walk down the halls are looking at

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Speaker 2: adult and student interaction. When they go by a classroom door,

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Speaker 2: looking in and seeing what's going on when it's before

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Speaker 2: school and after school and the classroom's empty, checking the classroom,

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Speaker 2: seeing what's happened. We need people who are on the

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Speaker 2: move and looking for the right things. It isn't that

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Speaker 2: people don't walk down the halls, but they aren't looking

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Speaker 2: at adult as student interactions. They're looking for some student

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Speaker 2: who's misbehavior. They're not looking for these things. So we

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Speaker 2: need supervisory behavior. When you hear a rumor, even if

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Speaker 2: it's abstract, we need people who will investigate.

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Speaker 1: And on the occasions someone does report it, the investigation

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Speaker 1: often doesn't go far enough.

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Speaker 2: They tend to call the teacher in and say are

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Speaker 2: you having sex with Anne Marie? And the teacher says no,

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Speaker 2: and the person says, okay, thank you, I didn't think so.

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Speaker 2: And then the teacher steps out and texts Anne Marie

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Speaker 2: and says, erase everything off your phone, and if you

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Speaker 2: get called in, tell them nothing's going on, and that's

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Speaker 2: the end of it. They don't follow up in super vision.

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Speaker 2: They don't follow up and try to see what's happening.

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Speaker 2: They don't do an investigation, they don't ask the friends,

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Speaker 2: they don't do anything.

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Speaker 1: One of our listeners shared a story that still upsets

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Speaker 1: her years later.

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Speaker 3: She tried to do the right thing.

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Speaker 1: She wrote, I was a sophomore in high school and

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Speaker 1: one of my teachers used to hit on me and

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Speaker 1: tell me very inappropriate things, for instance, how he would

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Speaker 1: rather have me beside him in his bed instead of

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Speaker 1: his wife. Nothing physical ever happened. It was all verbal

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Speaker 1: and the mental toll it had on me. It was

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Speaker 1: so much more than my teenage mind could take. He

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Speaker 1: would follow me in the hallways. I couldn't take it

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Speaker 1: anymore and broke down in tears to my mother and

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Speaker 1: told her everything. We went to the school and told

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Speaker 1: the principal everything. He seemed skeptical. I was brought in

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Speaker 1: the next day for questioning. Needless to say, nothing.

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Speaker 3: Happened and he was slapped with a week off.

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Speaker 1: When he came back, it was worse because now he

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Speaker 1: demanded to know why are I said anything?

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Speaker 3: So what should happen?

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Speaker 2: Call the police and have an investigation. That's what you

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Speaker 2: need to do.

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Speaker 1: And what else does doctor sheikschaff feel is non negotiable.

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Speaker 2: No sharing phone numbers, no sharing social media, no having

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Speaker 2: friends on Facebook, no TikTok, no Instagram, no nothing. School

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Speaker 2: districts are supposed to have email that are monitored. They

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Speaker 2: can have texting systems that are monitored, so that you're

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Speaker 2: using the monitored texting systems for the school. There are

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Speaker 2: lots of ways to do electronic communication with students when

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Speaker 2: you need to, that are monitored by schools and are

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Speaker 2: therefore safe. Now that doesn't mean somebody might not also

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Speaker 2: use their telephone, but we should at least start with

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Speaker 2: the rule that no, you can't use your personal telephone number.

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Speaker 2: You can't use your personal telephone number for texting, or

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Speaker 2: your personal email or your personal social media. School districts

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Speaker 2: have Facebook social media pages, they have other things where

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Speaker 2: if you want to make an announcement to your students,

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Speaker 2: you want to do whatever, you can do it there.

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Speaker 1: And we can't just say this one time at the

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Speaker 1: beginning of the school year.

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Speaker 3: It needs to be messaged over and over again.

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Speaker 2: It is a simple rule and it should be followed,

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Speaker 2: and it should be followed with big signs up all

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Speaker 2: over the place and little pop ups that come up

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Speaker 2: and other things to remind people. Don't give out your

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Speaker 2: telephone number to an adult in the school, don't give

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Speaker 2: out your telephone number to a student in school. Don't text.

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Speaker 2: We need to change the patterns.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Shakeschaff understands how much we put on our teachers.

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Speaker 2: I was a teacher and I thought This job's the

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Speaker 2: hardest job I've ever had. It was wonderful, but it's

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Speaker 2: hard work. And so I don't want to slam the

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Speaker 2: teachers for that. Yeah, they're busy, but it is a

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Speaker 2: school culture problem. If you have a school culture that's

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Speaker 2: the culture of students safe use first, and these are

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Speaker 2: the things we do, and we talk about it, and

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Speaker 2: we share our strategies and we bring it up and

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Speaker 2: we don't bury it, and we don't just say, hey,

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Speaker 2: we've got a handbook and policies, read them and then

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Speaker 2: tell people that's training, which it's not. You know, we

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Speaker 2: can change a culture where we say we don't cross

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Speaker 2: kids boundaries. That's behavior that's not acceptable. Here.

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Speaker 1: The Betrayal Team thanks doctor Shakeshaft for insight into educator

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Speaker 1: sexual misconduct. There are new developments in Jennifer's story and

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Speaker 1: we'll share them with you in an additional bonus episode

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Speaker 1: soon