These institutions [like MCPS] will not deny that they hid them, moved them, or protected these predators. MCPS had Inappropriate Interactions Database. #sexualpredators #sexualabuse #rape #METOOK12

Yesterday in Annapolis Maryland State Delegate C.T. Wilson spoke to his proposed legislation that would eliminate the Statute of Limitations in sexual abuse civil cases and allow victims from the past an additional two years to file claims.

Listen to Delegate C.T. Wilson's presentation in the video below about why it is hard for the victims of sexual abuse to come forward.  Listen as he talks about how institutions like the Catholic Church are opposed to this legislation.

Institutions.  

Institutions including Montgomery County Public Schools that kept an Inappropriate Interactions Database of suspected sexual predators and "investigated" allegations themselves rather than reporting those suspected sexual predators to the Police and Child Protective Services.

• Watch this video from 2015, where Montgomery County Board of Education members joked about the MCPS Inappropriate Interactions Database:                                                                  Friday, June 19, 2015 Breaking News: MCPS May Shut Down "Infamous" Secret Database of Staff Suspected of Sexually Abusing Students. Kauffman calls it the "infamous" database, Smondrowski laughs.

While those Board of Education members in 2015 were joking about having an Inappropriate Interactions Database, MCPS elementary school teacher John Vigna was in a classroom full of little children at the same time he had multiple reprimands in his personnel file telling him to stop lap sitting with the little girls.

John Vigna was not arrested until 2016.  Keeping suspected sexual predators in classrooms was happening in 2015 and was not something for the Board of Education to joke about. 

Delegate C.T. Wilson's legislation also applies to past victims of sexual abuse in Montgomery County Public Schools.

How many victims of sexual abuse by MCPS teachers and staff have not yet come forward? 

Breaking News: MCPS May Shut Down "Infamous" Secret Database of Staff Suspected of Sexually Abusing Students. Kauffman calls it the "infamous" database, Smondrowski laughs.

MCPS Elem. Music Teacher Mug Shot

On Monday, June 15, 2015, the Montgomery County Board of Education's Policy Committee met and discussed changes to the extremely outdated BOE Child Abuse Policy.  BOE Committee meetings are now videotaped, yet there has been no press coverage of this important discussion.

Below is the video of the June 15th BOE Policy Committee meeting. At minute 17:50 you can hear BOE member Phil Kauffman talk about the "infamous" secret MCPS database of staff suspected of sexually abusing students.

Phil Kauffman:  "...In the past, I think that's where we were collecting this database, I guess, called the infamous database, um [ BOE member Rebecca Smondrowski laughs out loud] where I would say that these were innocent things being collected in a database and, but, maybe if you have 20 innocent incidents this looks like this isn't so innocent anymore.  It looks like we are not planning to keep this database anymore..."

MCPS staff, Josh Civin:  "We took out of the Protocols references to an Inappropriate Interactions Database while we are looking into that, with some concerns on that..."

Mr. Kauffman seems to think that the Infamous Database was used for innocent incidents. Maybe Mr. Kauffman should talk to some of MCPS elementary school teacher Lawrence Joynes' 15+ victims (here, here, here, and here)  and see if he still considers those incidents "innocent."

As to Rebecca Smondrowski's outburst of laughter during this discussion, in what society is harboring sex offenders in public schools for decades anything to laugh about, ever?