Alleged sexual abuse, teacher and administrator arrests, and school employee suspensions, have rocked Albemarle County Public Schools. Teachers are uneasily continuing their work as the county’s six remaining school board members are trying to get things back on track. WMRA’s Christine Kueter reports.
[sound of kids getting out of school]
Hugging, direct teacher-student email exchanges, and one-on-one meetings are out; classroom and hallway cameras, fist bumps, and an anonymous abuse reporting tip line are in. Annual mandatory reporting training – which more than 95% of school personnel have already completed – continues.
But even with that well-established rulebook, some Albemarle County teachers say they’re still uneasy in the wake of recent sexual abuse allegations, administrator firings and arrests, more than a dozen suspensions, and a level of parent outrage that’s caught this well-heeled school system of nearly 3,000 employees off guard.
ANONYMOUS TEACHER 1: With the 15 to 20 teachers on leave, that’s raised another level of concern for the teachers. So, before that, it was all central office people, administration people. Now, several teachers in the county are on leave, and we have no idea why, we don’t know if they’re coming back, we don’t know how long the process is going to take. The uncertainty is really hard to deal with, and not knowing, “am I next?”
This Albemarle teacher spoke with WMRA on the condition of anonymity. Two weeks ago, a top administrator at his school was put on leave, and hasn’t been back. Suspensions are happening at other schools, too.
ANONYMOUS TEACHER 1: Our principal told us not to speculate, or to talk about, you know, why someone’s out, because we don’t know, but you still can’t help but wonder what’s going on.
Even kids are noticing. Here’s another teacher who also asked to remain anonymous.
ANONYMOUS TEACHER 2: We had a child ask today, “hey, where’s Mr. so and so?” And that raised a question for the teacher about the best way to respond. . . . It would be worth a discussion about, not a party line, but a discussion about the best way to handle this that both takes into consideration of the feelings and the rights of all involved in the community so that everybody can feel like they’re being told the truth. Or that things aren’t being unnecessarily hidden.
That sense of secrecy has dogged the district since the arrests of two county teachers earlier this year: one for possession of sexual abuse material (to which Nicholas Clark pled guilty) and the other for 20 counts of sexually abusing third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade girls, according to court records. Michael Swiney maintains he’s innocent of those charges.
The superintendent resigned in the wake of Swiney’s arrest and another top-level administrator was put on leave in July for alleged sexual harassment of women, as 29 News previously reported.
Others implicated by authorities include a principal and two central office staff members who were each charged this month with failing to report the alleged child abuse.
In July, school board members set new professional boundaries for staff interactions with students. They hired a law firm to review the district’s response to allegations of sexually inappropriate conduct, the first part of which will be made public this week.
Rebecca Berlin is school board chair and a former special ed teacher.
REBECCA BERLIN: I’m a mom of two kids who went through Albemarle Public Schools. It is the safety of your kid, and as a parent, and as a family member, you want to make sure that when you put your kids on the bus at 7:25, that they are safe and secure. I get it. I understand. Like, we have 14,000 kids in our care, 10,000 families, and we want everyone to make sure that they feel comfortable and that is what is at the heart of the crisis, and, like, that is the trust we have to rebuild.
Much of the tension stems from what facts can and can’t be shared, and, related to possible criminal behavior, who knew what when.
BERLIN: The hardest thing is there are things that, because of personnel requirements and laws, we can’t share. I know people would like us to be able to say, you know, “Rebecca has been put on leave because of this, she will return, and this is the reason,” but because of personnel policies, we can’t disclose that information, and most of the time there’s information that I don’t even have. The privacy of our employees is also something we have to guarantee. Every parent and every family member who cares for a child in our school system wants to make sure their child is safe. And so, I understand why they want information as quickly as possible, and answers as quickly as possible. But sometimes that takes a little bit of time.
Some teachers say the tension is taking a toll.
ANONYMOUS TEACHER 2: I think it’s important to differentiate between the level of criminal behavior that happened this spring and the mistakes we make as teachers who are human, on a daily basis, working with lots of children and lots of moving parts, and not enough time. I think the mood in the schools is now that everything is being raised to that level. And it is stressful to be in such a public facing job, and on all day long, and not make mistakes.
After Governor Abigail Spanberger called for accountability, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors passed its own resolution last week, requesting that the school board come up with more public data reporting, crisis communication and institutional culture assessments, a new whistle-blower reporting system, and regular updates to the state superintendent and Department of Education.
Here’s Supervisor Sally Duncan.
SUPERVISOR SALLY DUNCAN: ACPS is a good public good and trust must be restored. What has been broken can be repaired.
But it’s a tall order for a school board down two people. Berlin says she and her colleagues are trying harder to listen.
BERLIN: Is it a phone call, is it a meeting, is it an email? We’re also working with family counsel to make sure we do more listening sessions and actually working on a process so that parents can provide questions in advance as well as what is the follow-through loop, and doing that both in a face-to-face setting and also talking about, if families don’t have the ability to travel or can’t travel, beginning to implement some virtual meetings as well.
School board officials meet this Thursday, October 22, at 5 p.m., where they’ll discuss the search for a new superintendent and release the first report from the law firm hired to review the district’s handling of abuse allegations.
