Open Letter from Jennifer Alvaro to Montgomery County Board of Education in advance of their Monday, June 29, 2015, vote on Policy JHC Child Abuse and Neglect.
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June 21, 2015
To: Montgomery County Board of Education
In
2012, you were instructed by the state board of education to correct
errors and flaws committed by MCPS which allowed and enabled a member
of your staff to continue sexually abusing students for years. You
chose to do nothing. Since 2012, the public has been made aware of
well
over a dozen cases
where MCPS staff have been arrested & convicted (for sexual
abuse) or publicly identified as being as inappropriate sexually to
our children.
Please
share your rational for ignoring the state board of education and
their recommendations.
Please
tell me other situations where constituents are ignored and dismissed
without being spoken to directly after 3 years of outreach.
Please
tell the public what other workgroup(s) MCPS has convened (which have
been downgraded to advisory group) whose own group members have to
file freedom of information requests to get public documents that
relate to the issue they are working on. Information I am still
waiting for, I might add.
Please
share with the public what other policies & regulations MCPS are
currently implementing or planning to implement with full knowledge
they violate / conflict with current laws, statutes and AG opinions.
Please
share with the public how it is possible to pass a policy based upon
other critical documents that have not yet been written much less
approved.
Please
explain how the schools are going to train 23,000 employees and
countless volunteers about sexual abuse without being able to show
them (via the code of conduct) what grooming behaviors are.
Please
share with us, why county leadership is willing to pass a policy when
MCPS staff who are the lead members of the advisory group have stated
in meetings, “it’s not perfect” and “we’ve done a lot but
still need to do more”.
Please
share with us how we as parents are to find it reassuring or
acceptable you as a board are going to leave our children in danger of
being sexually abused by your staff by you passing a flawed policy
because, “we are going to review it every year”. Please show
us hard data where this has worked for you in the past.
Please
explain how it is acceptable to attempt to publicly blame &
shame parents by making public comments saying they have demanded action but now are demanding you slow down. These parents (myself
included) are simply asking you to postpone one vote and demand
accountability and excellence from your staff so our children are
safe. We are not asking you to slow down anything, had you demanded
excellence from your staff, we would now be supporting approval of
the policy.
Please
explain how it is acceptable for the leaders of a world class school
system to have abdicated their most basic duty to ensure safety and
demand excellence.
Please
explain how it is acceptable to knowingly do the wrong thing because
you have delayed doing the right thing for so long.
Please
reflect upon the following:
“To study psychological trauma is to come face to face both with human vulnerability in the natural world and with the capacity for evil in human nature. . . Those who bear witness are caught in the conflict between victim and perpetrator. It is morally impossible to remain neutral in this conflict. The bystander is forced to take sides. It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering”. Judith Herman
Jennifer Alvaro
MCPS Child Abuse Advisory Group Member
Parent of 2 MCPS Students
Alumni of MCPS Schools
Licensed Clinical Social worker (MD &VA)
Certified Sex Offender Treatment Provider
MCPS Child Abuse Advisory Group Member
Parent of 2 MCPS Students
Alumni of MCPS Schools
Licensed Clinical Social worker (MD &VA)
Certified Sex Offender Treatment Provider
It is quite pathetic
ReplyDeleteBut certainly prophetic
For BOE to be hectic
Finicky and eclectic.
Which laws and AG opinions does the policy violate? If you can list them, people would be more open to your argument.
ReplyDelete"people?" Which people?
Delete"Open to your argument?"
Sorry, please explain why you would be CLOSED to any discussion of keeping children SAFE while they are in the custody of a public school system?
This blog has had an extensive discussion of this issue for years now.
If you cared one little iota, you'd be reading up and learning why your children are not safe when they attend MCPS.
Even the June 15th discussion we posted of BOE members Kauffman, Smondrowski and O'Neill whining about how they don't want to prevent staff from HUGGING students would show how intent the BOE is on allowing GROOMING behavior to continue.
If you care about student safety, it's time for you to look up GROOMING behavior, what that means and how it is used by sexual predators.
In fact, you can read the stories about Lawrence Joynes and see exactly how the Board of Education ALLOWS that behavior and how it results in RAPE and SEXUAL ABUSE of MCPS students.