Unwanted publicity for prep schools: sex abuse allegations, Part 2
Is the sexual abuse of children by teachers in what a recent New York Times articles calls “the insular, privileged world of American prep schools” a singular or outsized problem as compared with what occurs in public schools?
That’s debatable.
And it certainly is being debated across the country these days in light of recurring — and eminently disturbing — information that is surfacing regarding acts of teacher-perpetrated sexual abuse of students in private institutions.
On the one hand, the Times notes, many educators weigh in with the view that school-based sexual misconduct involving teachers “occurs with alarming frequency across all types of educational institutions.”
Still, there is a flatly distinguishing characteristic attached to prep schools and academies that is simply lacking in public schools, and that has to do with continuous opportunity.
For predators, that is. One legal advocate for abuse victims says that private schools are “fertile ground for predators” for one very obvious reason, namely this: teachers are often on school grounds at all times and intermingling in an intense way with boarding students, frequently living on campus, accompanying their charges on trips, dining with them and so forth.
And that close proximity to students that simply does not exist in the public school system enables predators an unfettered access to victims.
That is being underscored these days by recurring stories regarding the ouster of teachers for acts of sexual misconduct. As the Times notes, some of those tales spotlight the sad fact that material facts relating to sexual abuse are just now coming to public attention, despite problem teachers having been fired years ago.
It bears noting, of course, that notwithstanding the current media focus on sexual abuse occurring in private educational institutions, students are targets of criminals in all school environments in California and nationally.
Teachers are trusted by young people. It is truly tragic when that trust is reciprocated by criminal conduct.
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