Friday, August 23, 2013

Closer Look: Date of Incident: May 2009 - A Teacher Describes a Student Being Put in a Closet

This e-mail is also from the recent litigation by former teachers at Kemp Mill Elementary School versus the Montgomery County Board of Education.

In this August 6, 2010, e-mail a Kemp Mill ES teacher describes an incident at Kemp Mill ES to a Montgomery County employee.


11 comments:

  1. Carole Osburn's graphic letter to Assistant State's Attorney Stephen Chaikin on April 2011 is the more telling document.

    http://www.savekmes.org/civilsuit/OsburnLetter.pdf

    When his own administrative secretary details suspected child abuse to a high-ranking law-enforcement official, you would expect a criminal investigation and follow-up arrest. Yet, nothing happened.

    MCPS knew all about Starnes' immoral & criminal deeds in June 2010 when MSTA Attorney Gupta contacted Compliance Specialist Ann Kamenstein.

    http://savekmes.org/KamensteinLetter.pdf

    Kamenstein refused to investigate.

    May's settlement with "The Kemp Mill Six" silenced the teachers with a confidential financial settlement. The school system repeatedly tried to have the $108,000,000 law suit thrown out. When they failed, they coughed up sizable tax dollars to keep their cover-up of a predatory monster under wraps.

    Even after Starnes' admission of falsifying records to get teachers fired/transferred, bullying of staff members, sexually harassment of staff, groping of male staff members, and the molestation of male students in KMES closets both during the school day as this Coalition document portrays and on the weekends alone.

    Floyd Starnes will be greeting students next week. This forum has droned on about "restrictions" on teachers. Yet a lying deviant still has access to hundreds of MCPS's poorest children.

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  2. But I tell you I am sure there is more to it than the closet abuse. From finding out (much later and surely not the full story) what was going on with bullying (child-on-child) during the years my son was tormented (starnes tenure from 2007-2009, the children were beating each other, stealing each others things, calling each other names, mostly gay slurs, much sexual behavior among the children particularly in the bathrooms, playground, buses, much of it of a gay nature. Even if Starnes story is true that he was taking the children into the closet to help them (which obviously I don't believe) one must ask, why were so many children emotionally disturbed, why were they falling apart, why were the children destroying each other, why didn't the teachers and administration (yes you bronda mills and the boe and the superintendent - then weast) put a stop to it. When my son when to the psychiatric hospital, there was another child in his room from kemp mill. When I pulled him out of the psychiatric hospital against medical advice, it was because a bully from kemp mill had been put in the bed beside him. When I talked to parents, I counted six children that year who went from kemp mill to psychiatric hospitals, for suicidality, for school avoidance. Is this normal? How does this compare to other schools in MCPS and in other school districts? do other schools have second and third graders engaging in gay sexual activity in the bathrooms? Where did they learn this? I believe we only have the tip of the titanic and don't know how to prove what the hell is going on in that school but MCPS needs to get Starnes out and get an honest, decent, strong principal in. Principal Wilson at Arcola had the same demographic (majority minority, majority poor) and he had none of these problems. He was tough on bullies, he ran a good school, the kids learned. I have not heard of any of his kids going to psychiatric institutions. The destroyed children from Kemp Mill came to Arcola and healed there. What the hell?

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  3. Math Content Coach, Ms. Osburn's letter is powerful, but each case is important and each of these children suffered horribly. I agree with Parents Coalition that it is important to publish these letters.

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  4. I agree wholeheartedly that each of Starnes' abused closet victims deserves their day in court. I am happy the Parents Coalition is finally revealing these important documents. I now only hope that law enforcement finally gets involved.

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  5. It boggles the mind that no staff member reported this incident in May of 2009.

    Why? Why not until more than a year after the fact?

    Was the fact that they came forward really about the child's welfare?

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    Replies
    1. Ms. Eppes? Ms. Reeks? Ms. Osborn? WHY DID YOU WAIT SO LONG??? The teacher who saw the student sitting on Mr. Picca's lap in April 2010 reported what she saw IMMEDIATELY. Why didn't you do the same?

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    2. Laurie Spinelli-Samara was one of Starnes' cronies who sheltered his closet molestation and lied to silence Picca.

      http://www.savekmes.org/incidentreport.shtml

      Spinelli-Samara was removed from Kemp Mill ES as math content coach after three straight years of dreadful test scores. She was rewarded with a cushy 12-month central office position where she kills time sorting paper clips today.

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    3. Why
      did
      the
      teachers
      wait
      so
      long
      to
      report
      the
      closet
      incident?

      Why will NO ONE ANSWER THAT QUESTION??

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  6. It's worse than that. My son was taken in the closet in 2008. I didn't even know until the Picca time when the SaveKMES people helped me. Nobody reported until then. Was that 2010? Guess who knew? Not just teachers and Ms. Osburn. Janet Johnson, Pupil Personnel Worker, who pretended like she was helping me, knew that my son's classmate had been abused, suicidal and hospitalized, and taken out for homeschool a full academic year before my son became suicidal (Spring of 2009). When I figured it out through a chance encounter and subsequent friendship with the Mom, I asked Johnson why she didn't help me, she said she could not due to confidentiality. I wasn't asking her to tell me details of the other boy, but couldn't she have warned me that my son was in danger, when she fully knew this to be the case? That was a full year of suffering that he did not need to endure, if she or any of the others could have just warned me - even if they were afraid to report to CPS, can't you inform a parent? Anyway, Anonymous 2:14, I think no one is answering you because no one knows the answer except the teachers and MCPS staff, and they will not help any of us. We still don't even know the names of all of the closet-children. What is the path to justice?

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    Replies
    1. I suspect that the teachers are on here but all they're doing is posting references to savekmes. They are interested only in getting their own digs on Mr. Starnes for their own reasons, not on helping the children.

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    2. I made one mistake in the above that I need to correct (my post at Anonymous 2:40) - at the time that I confronted Janet Johnson (2009), I still did not know about the closet. At that time I thought the damage was from the extreme bullying. (The child-on-child bullying)

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