Latest / The Myth of Education Podcast / Ep. 31 | Passing the Trash w/Paul Zimmerman

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Ep. 31 | Passing the Trash w/Paul Zimmerman · The Myth of Education Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: We found instances of teachers' unions negotiating a non-disclosure agreement under
0:04
SPEAKER_00: which the district would not reveal allegations about the teacher's conduct as long
0:08
SPEAKER_00: as the teacher went quietly to a new district.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Teachers' unions are very powerful in the halls of the state legislature.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: They often oppose any attempts at reforming and drawing attention to this issue.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: They put a lot of pressure on state lawmakers to protect their members,
0:24
SPEAKER_00: but in the process of doing that they protect sexually abusive employees
0:28
SPEAKER_00: from being investigated.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: Why wouldn't protecting children be the highest priority?
0:33
SPEAKER_01: Are children not considered the most important people there?
0:36
SPEAKER_00: That's a big question.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: They're not there to protect children.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who thinks that is their number one interest is mistaken.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: They're there to protect their own interests.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to The Myth of Education Podcast,
0:47
SPEAKER_00: where we expose corruption, advocate for student safety, and defend parental rights.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: Follow us on socials at Myth of Education.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: Subscribe at mythofeducation.com.
1:02
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1:08
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1:11
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for tuning in to The Myth of Education Podcast.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: Be sure to like, share, and leave a comment.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: I have with me today Paul Zimmerman.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: He leads Defense of Freedom Institute's Teacher Union Accountability Project.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: He worked over a decade in various roles from the Federalist Society for Law
1:32
SPEAKER_01: and Public Studies before serving as counselor.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: We appreciate your expertise and welcome to The Myth of Education Podcast.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me on, Tiffany.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: So for those who may be unfamiliar with the term,
2:02
SPEAKER_01: can you define what it means to pass the trash?
2:10
SPEAKER_00: It involves teachers and other employees who sexually abuse students and instead
2:19
SPEAKER_00: of investigating those teachers and holding them accountable,
2:23
SPEAKER_00: what schools and school districts What therapists too often do is they sweep
2:28
SPEAKER_00: the problem under the rug.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: They hold a meeting with the teacher.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: They say, you have to resign quietly.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: We are not going to take action against you.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Instead, we might even offer a positive recommendation as long as you leave our district.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: That has led to some pretty grotesque results, including...
2:55
SPEAKER_00: Yes, then it's safe to assume that passing the trash primarily or solely deals
2:58
SPEAKER_00: with sexual misconduct when it comes to students.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: So it's not dealing with any other potential crime that could be happening.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: I think that it could be other crimes.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: When we use the term passing the trash,
3:30
SPEAKER_00: we are generally referring to sexual misconduct by teachers.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: That can be a broader range than just actual sexual abuse.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: It can be grooming.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: It could be sexual harassment.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: But often we find these behaviors,
3:42
SPEAKER_00: this grooming, you know, leads to actual sexual abuse in the K-12 school system.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: So the stats that I'm going to read here,
3:51
SPEAKER_01: these come from your article,
3:52
SPEAKER_01: your 2023 DFI article,
3:54
SPEAKER_01: Catching the Trash,
3:56
SPEAKER_01: holding teachers unions,
3:57
SPEAKER_01: school districts,
3:57
SPEAKER_01: and the U.S.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: Department of Ed accountable for the epidemic of sexual abuse in public schools.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: And I will link to that in the show notes.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: So basically between...
4:06
SPEAKER_01: 2010 and 2019,
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SPEAKER_01: the DOE,
4:09
SPEAKER_01: Office of Civil Rights,
4:10
SPEAKER_01: complaints tripled,
4:11
SPEAKER_01: which included those incidents of sexual violence of rape or attempted rape.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: And then, as you mentioned, on average, a teacher who sexually abuses a child is transferred.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: I've had school board members and school officials tell me they were
4:24
SPEAKER_01: a first-time offender and
4:36
SPEAKER_01: We just weren't aware of this happening.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: But in each of those situations,
4:39
SPEAKER_01: there was some sort of report,
4:41
SPEAKER_01: even once in their HR file, that let us know that they had a conduct problem.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: And then also what you said in your article is that local education agencies act
4:50
SPEAKER_01: in concert with Thank you.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for the unions, I think that they're a really important thing to talk about.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: They are one of the most important actors.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: They're not the only one,
5:16
SPEAKER_00: but they are very important because they insert themselves at many different levels
5:21
SPEAKER_00: of this problem at the local level, at the school level.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: They often negotiate collective bargaining agreements with school districts
5:29
SPEAKER_00: that have the effect of covering up kind of like what you were saying,
5:32
SPEAKER_00: teachers' information and files.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: They make it impossible to access.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they scrub the information from the files when they're asked.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: And then they also represent a teacher as accused of sexual abuse.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: And we found in our report that the teachers are accused of sexual abuse.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: We support instances of teachers unions sitting down with the teacher and
5:57
SPEAKER_00: the district official and negotiating a non-disclosure agreement under which
6:01
SPEAKER_00: the district would not reveal any of the allegations about the teacher's conduct
6:06
SPEAKER_00: as long as the teacher went quietly to a new district.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: And the other stage really at which the teachers unions are working are at the state level.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: Teachers unions are very powerful in the halls of the state legislatures
6:20
SPEAKER_00: and they often oppose any attempts at reforming and reforming.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: So rather than fix the problem and be open
6:39
SPEAKER_00: They often target these state bills.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: They make it very hard to pass them.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: They put a lot of pressure on state lawmakers,
6:48
SPEAKER_00: and they often kind of dull them down and make them ineffective in order
6:53
SPEAKER_00: to protect their members.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: But in the process of doing that,
6:56
SPEAKER_00: they protect sexually abusive employees from being investigated and being found out
7:02
SPEAKER_00: in these schools.
7:02
SPEAKER_01: In your experience, what is the mindset behind why they do this?
7:07
SPEAKER_01: Why wouldn't protecting children be the highest priority for the entire school district?
7:13
SPEAKER_01: Are children not considered the most important people there?
7:15
SPEAKER_00: That's a big question.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about different parts of the system, and I think that's a really great question.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it gets to the root of what we're talking about.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Going back to the unions,
7:23
SPEAKER_00: I think that they are there to protect teachers,
7:26
SPEAKER_00: sometimes to advance politics, obviously, and we've talked about that.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: With their walkouts and whatnot.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: Right.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: But they're not there to protect children.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who thinks that is their number one interest is mistaken.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: But with the school district,
7:40
SPEAKER_00: I just really see this kind of blob,
7:42
SPEAKER_00: this system that is not necessarily there to protect students.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: They've kind of lost their way.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: They've forgotten in many cases,
7:51
SPEAKER_00: not all cases,
7:52
SPEAKER_00: but in many cases, they've forgotten what their number one priority should be.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: And that's really keeping kids that parents have entrusted
7:57
SPEAKER_00: to their care safe Substack,
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Substack, The Myth of Education Podcast, mythofeducation.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
8:23
SPEAKER_00: we really need to take a hard look at the incentives that are being produced
8:26
SPEAKER_00: by these school systems if the number one priority is really not getting found out
8:31
SPEAKER_00: and passing teachers quietly to other systems rather than the safety of the child.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: And I just want to interject, I know we're using teacher a lot.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: Consider that a catch-all for this podcast because we don't only see this problem
8:43
SPEAKER_01: with teachers, it's with counselors, it's with coaches.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: It actually is happening a lot with coaches.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: Also, we are seeing an uptick of People in leadership who are women preying on male students.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: It's a problem all the way around.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: And a moment ago, you were saying that this was a conversation that we needed to have more of.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: This led me to ask the question,
9:03
SPEAKER_01: why don't we see school board members and legislators running on the issue
9:08
SPEAKER_01: of getting predators out of our schools?
9:10
SPEAKER_01: Clearly, this falls under student safety.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: But why is this so taboo to put that as one of your pillars when you're running for office?
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, certainly I think that they should do that.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: And I totally agree with you that we should be talking about school employees,
9:23
SPEAKER_00: sexual abuse, not just teachers.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: And also that by and large,
9:27
SPEAKER_00: teachers are there to teach students and teachers are doing the right thing.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to target all teachers.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: I think that we need to recognize that these are bad actors in the system,
9:37
SPEAKER_00: but it's not in the majority, obviously, of the system.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: And I think teachers would benefit from this problem being addressed and not having
9:43
SPEAKER_00: to work with sexual abusers in the system.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: I think that people should be running on this.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: I think that we have trouble as a society of talking about these issues,
9:54
SPEAKER_00: in a sense, in large systems like the public school system.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: I think people would rather just kind of assume that things are all right.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: And as soon as people start talking I mean, that's real trouble.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot easier to kind of focus on the positive message in one's campaigning
10:23
SPEAKER_00: and one's list of fixes for a school district.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: I would ask you,
10:26
SPEAKER_00: maybe this is not my role,
10:27
SPEAKER_00: but I would reflect back at you if you have any thoughts on why it is so difficult
10:31
SPEAKER_00: to talk about.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: Well, some of my best performing podcasts do have to deal with sexual assault
10:42
SPEAKER_01: and harassment and grooming in public schools.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: And for those who are not aware, I actually live in the Peoria Unified School District.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: So we've gone national with the police raid because they did not want to comply with
10:54
SPEAKER_01: a search warrant.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: And this all started with a young boy who was allegedly,
10:58
SPEAKER_01: we have to say allegedly because there's no charges yet, but he was preyed upon.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: By a couple of educators.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: To your question of why it may seem difficult, it's what you said.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: People want to shy away from it because it's not the pretty stuff.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: Cover up culture.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: It's better for PR.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: You've got new families moving into the neighborhood.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: They are going to purchase a I love you.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: I love you.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: We need that reputation to follow them until they're at the end of this career
11:35
SPEAKER_01: or they've got doors that they see opening, just having the wrong priority.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: That's what it really is.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: As humans,
11:42
SPEAKER_01: we're all going to be flawed and we're all going to have issues,
11:45
SPEAKER_01: but we're not all going to prey on children.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: That's a special kind of psychotic and we do need to face it because this is an epidemic.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: When you quoted that, the 10% of students, we have upwards of 50 million students.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: So that 10% comes out to 5 million.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: But I think that only represents what's reported.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: It only represents when a student is believed or a faculty member is believed
12:11
SPEAKER_01: and it's investigated.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: I think that we see a lot of underreporting and that makes sense.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: That should make us a lot more concerned.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: And what you're talking about,
12:31
SPEAKER_00: people just wanting to be seen as being successful in school systems,
12:35
SPEAKER_00: I think that totally strikes a chord with me.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: I also think that leads to non-transparency and that That leads to hiding the files.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: That leads to trying to sweep things under the rug.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: That is why one of the things that we propose is total transparency by schools.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: In our report,
12:53
SPEAKER_00: we say schools should have to publish these kinds of crimes that occur I mean,
12:57
SPEAKER_00: not everything will be reported.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't solve the reporting problem.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, none of this is a sober bullet because it's really a systemic problem.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I agree.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to circle back to the
13:42
SPEAKER_01: The union issue and the fact that a lot of them are activists,
13:45
SPEAKER_01: they have a mission about them that can fool parents and community members
13:50
SPEAKER_01: of what they're about.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: Ultimately,
13:52
SPEAKER_01: whatever their mission is,
13:53
SPEAKER_01: whether it's filling certain positions with their people,
13:56
SPEAKER_01: whether it's increasing Transcription by Casting
14:12
SPEAKER_01: These attacks and things that are happening on campus,
14:15
SPEAKER_01: that would actually task those in leadership positions
14:18
SPEAKER_01: with also producing right next to it what their solutions are and what they're doing
14:22
SPEAKER_01: to change it.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: Over the last several years,
14:25
SPEAKER_01: and especially in the previous administration that we had,
14:30
SPEAKER_01: I always
14:36
SPEAKER_01: do quote marks because an SSW is not the same as an LCSW.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: SSWs are activists.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: It says it on their website.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: And so when there was that fight going on of who should get the funding, well,
14:47
SPEAKER_01: of course,
14:47
SPEAKER_01: the unions are backing, bringing in more activists, putting them in these positions.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: All you have to have in the state of Arizona is is some sort of license from
14:56
SPEAKER_01: the ADE, no clinical, nothing, and you've got access to the minds of children.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: So it's a whole big scheme that I think parents need to be aware of and they need
15:06
SPEAKER_01: to know how to combat it.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Totally agree.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: And I think just mentioning the last administration under President Biden,
15:12
SPEAKER_00: the teachers unions kind of had a veto over the policies of
15:16
SPEAKER_00: the Education Department.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: We had questions on a biennial survey on civil rights that the Department
15:22
SPEAKER_00: of Education does,
15:23
SPEAKER_00: just as one example, questions that dealt with Passing the trash and sexual abuse.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: The Biden administration attempted to remove those questions from the questionnaire
15:32
SPEAKER_00: and shed less light on this issue rather than shedding more light.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, they had to backtrack under immense public pressure.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: These are the kinds of things that the teachers unions are doing at
15:43
SPEAKER_00: the federal level, state level, local level.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, we have turned a corner in the education department these days.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: They have relaunched from the first Trump administration a national initiative
15:54
SPEAKER_00: on K-12 sexual abuse.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: They sent a Dear Colleague letter to each of the local education agencies.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: Secretary McMahon sent that letter warning them that if they don't comply with
16:05
SPEAKER_00: the requirements of Title IX to address sexual abuse in their programs
16:09
SPEAKER_00: and investigate it, if they don't comply with the requirements of Title IX.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: Don't comply with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act requirements
16:15
SPEAKER_00: on not passing the trash.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: They will be found out and may lose access to federal funding.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: What a difference an administration makes.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: It's great that we've kind of turned the page and we're starting to get more of
16:25
SPEAKER_00: a serious focus at the federal level on these issues.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so let's go into that.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: Your report says,
16:31
SPEAKER_01: if school administrators and district officials choose to keep their communities in
16:34
SPEAKER_01: the dark and allow known abusers to move from school to school or district
16:37
SPEAKER_01: to district,
16:37
SPEAKER_01: they would be penalized
16:39
SPEAKER_01: and their local education agency should suffer financial sanctions up to
16:42
SPEAKER_01: and including a lawsuit.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: So federal funding, which is what you just paraphrased there.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: How realistic is that expectation in comparison to where we are?
16:50
SPEAKER_01: Your article is not very old.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: It's two, three years old.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: Is this the specific mission of the USDOE cracking it and hopefully it leading
16:57
SPEAKER_01: to prosecutions now that they've announced that initiative July of this year?
17:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: So I think three years ago, this seemed a lot less likely to happen around the corner.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: And now, thankfully, it does seem to be taking shape.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: We see an administration now and specifically a Department of Education
17:13
SPEAKER_00: that is very serious about federal We see an administration
17:17
SPEAKER_00: that is taking those tools very seriously and so when they say
17:30
SPEAKER_00: And I think in this letter,
17:32
SPEAKER_00: hey, school districts and states, you have to comply with these requirements.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: For instance,
17:37
SPEAKER_00: you have to have a policy that doesn't allow a school administrator to help
17:42
SPEAKER_00: an employee get a new job with another school district.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: I think that they are serious enough to use those tools.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: If there come to a day when school districts really have to pay attention to this,
18:04
SPEAKER_00: everyone should be paying attention to the department's communications
18:07
SPEAKER_00: and its actions with regard to school districts so that they do not face the loss
18:12
SPEAKER_00: of federal funding and other proceedings like a Justice Department.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: Well, I found this interesting that in 2015,
18:21
SPEAKER_01: Congress passed the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act or ESSA for short.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: And this was that exact legislation that was supposed to persist.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: We have 19 states plus the D.C. area.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: They have 60 states.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: Some sort of legislation that's hitched to that ESSA legislation.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: Have you researched whether these 19 states have had a decline in student sexual assaults?
18:55
SPEAKER_00: That's a very good question on the data on whether there is a decline.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: I would say it's a little early to There are many states
19:02
SPEAKER_00: that have passed requirements related to this ESSA requirement you're talking about.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: It's related to it.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: In some cases,
19:10
SPEAKER_00: what these school districts are doing is just totally scrubbing the personnel file.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: So one thing we talk about in our report is that really to be effective,
19:21
SPEAKER_00: you can't just have a state say, oh, don't help another teacher get a job.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: I think you have to say,
19:27
SPEAKER_00: don't get rid of the information that would provide a full picture about that.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: And we only found back at the time that I did my report that three states,
19:33
SPEAKER_00: not including Arizona, unfortunately,
19:45
SPEAKER_00: I do know that California took some action recently and give them
20:01
SPEAKER_00: I'll do credit for helping to stop passing the trash.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: I think we do need to study what the impacts of these changes are
20:08
SPEAKER_00: and we really need more action from states despite pressure from
20:12
SPEAKER_00: the teachers unions not to act and the idea
20:15
SPEAKER_00: that we should pretend like everything is great in public schools.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: We need more action at the state level in addition to other measures in order
20:24
SPEAKER_00: to address the situation.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: To your point, I wanted to offer some clarification for my audience.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: So when something isn't acted on the federal or the state level,
20:32
SPEAKER_01: there's still a policy level, right?
20:34
SPEAKER_01: You've got federal legislation,
20:36
SPEAKER_01: state legislation, but within school grounds, we have the policy level.
20:40
SPEAKER_01: And that is the level where it's going to make sense for parents,
20:44
SPEAKER_01: employees, K-12 community members to show up.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: And make sure that the elected officials are complying with state and federal laws
20:53
SPEAKER_01: in the policies that they write.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: It should just be continuity.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: What the Constitution says,
20:58
SPEAKER_01: what the state Constitution says,
21:00
SPEAKER_01: what the school's policies say should be in a If the state passes something,
21:04
SPEAKER_01: it's not necessarily automatic that teachers and staff are going
21:09
SPEAKER_01: to start obeying what the law says.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: There has to be an enforcement on the district level and the site level.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, it's kind of a moot point.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: And the reason The reason why I say this, Paul, is because I have seen that disconnect.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: For example,
21:21
SPEAKER_01: at the beginning of Trump's term,
21:22
SPEAKER_01: he basically said, no DEI, we need to get it out of our schools, period.
21:27
SPEAKER_01: You're putting your funding at risk.
21:29
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's pushback from different school districts across
21:32
SPEAKER_01: the country They have slow rolled changing any DEI,
21:35
SPEAKER_01: anything,
21:36
SPEAKER_01: taking it out of their mission statements or the things that they're teaching.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: Whereas when we had a conservative majority,
21:42
SPEAKER_01: we don't anymore,
21:43
SPEAKER_01: but when we did,
21:44
SPEAKER_01: we rolled back all of that because we took it seriously and there was no argument
21:49
SPEAKER_01: against it.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: So I did just want to put that out there.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: And then I wanted to follow up with that question of,
21:54
SPEAKER_01: have you studied private schools or alternative education?
21:58
SPEAKER_01: Or are we just mainly looking at public schools?
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Because that's where the most of kids are.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Looking at public schools,
22:03
SPEAKER_00: because that's where we feel like the tools,
22:06
SPEAKER_00: especially the federal government, where the tools are.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Title IX extends to federally funded programs throughout the United States
22:14
SPEAKER_00: and extends to all public school districts throughout the country.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: So if we're really going to get a handle on the problem in the public schools
22:21
SPEAKER_00: and use the tools at our disposal,
22:23
SPEAKER_00: focus on those school systems and also focus on the teachers unions,
22:28
SPEAKER_00: which are prevalent in the public school systems.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: But you make a very good point.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: This is definitely not just a public school issue.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: It is a systemic issue across schools.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Our research focusing on public schools should not be interpreted
22:43
SPEAKER_00: as saying there's no problem, nothing to see here in the private schools.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to take transparency and parental control seriously in the private sector.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: You know,
22:52
SPEAKER_01: the irony is that the oversight of a public school is actually greater than private
22:57
SPEAKER_01: because of the donors and partnerships that private schools and other entities form.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: They don't really have to report so much to the federal government
23:05
SPEAKER_01: because they're not accepting those funds.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: As opposed to public schools, they have all of those regulations, but we're not enforcing them.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that school districts could do better is in dealing
23:17
SPEAKER_01: with this whole background check, right?
23:19
SPEAKER_01: So I did a background check.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: I got a fingerprint clearance.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: I hate to profile predators, but let's just be real here.
23:31
SPEAKER_01: There's usually a pattern of behavior or characteristic of a predator.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: This is not true of everybody when I list these characteristics,
23:38
SPEAKER_01: but it is something to watch out for.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: The person is usually very charismatic, outgoing.
23:43
SPEAKER_01: They're the teacher or the coach of the month.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: They've won championships or they've made some sort of scientific discovery.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: Whatever their field is, they're excelling in it and they're often celebrated by the community.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: And this is what makes it hard to believe that that person...
23:59
SPEAKER_01: The profile of a victim too,
24:00
SPEAKER_01: just as a side note,
24:01
SPEAKER_01: is typically someone that's eager to please adults possibly coming from
24:05
SPEAKER_01: a broken home or they're neglected or they just they struggle with mental health
24:09
SPEAKER_01: or those sorts of things.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: And those are the type of students that we need to respond.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: This has nothing to do with whether or not they've been accused of something.
24:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you,
24:32
SPEAKER_01: when they do a FOIA request right,
24:34
SPEAKER_01: you can see that so-and-so reported this employee for this thing.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: All that was done is that they were talked to about it.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: But it was enough.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: It happened.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: It happened enough times in those public records we saw that it created a pattern
24:46
SPEAKER_01: and the person technically should have been fired, but they weren't.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: So what do you see in the field as like a ratio
24:53
SPEAKER_01: of first time offenders getting caught versus those who are repeatedly?
25:00
SPEAKER_00: I would just say that when we're talking about people being passed
25:05
SPEAKER_00: to different school districts and having as many as 73 victims,
25:08
SPEAKER_00: I think the characteristics of the teacher that you're talking about and some of
25:12
SPEAKER_00: the anecdotal and Yeah.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: I think that just drives the repeat process.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: I think it's hard to investigate and to ultimately terminate a teacher or
25:48
SPEAKER_00: an employee at a school.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: I think that administrators struggle to kind of go down that route.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: And so that's some of the reasons why there will be repeat offenders In these cases,
25:58
SPEAKER_00: people can have dozens and dozens of victims over the course of long careers
26:03
SPEAKER_00: and their paths to different schools once they're found out in one place.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, what I would say, what seems to put a stop to it often is law enforcement.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Basically, once it That's what I tell a lot of people.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Get law enforcement involved at an earlier stage.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: Schools have a responsibility.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: When I started doing this research about four or five years ago,
26:31
SPEAKER_00: I ended up watching a documentary.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: I think it was published by CBS.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: It's called Pledge of Silence and it covered Redlands, California.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: They had paid out
26:49
SPEAKER_01: Multiple millions of dollars from like the 80s to the early 2000s of these students
26:54
SPEAKER_01: that had been sexually harassed, raped, violated by these teachers in the district.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: They knew it was just passing the trash.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: And this documentary brought this out too.
27:04
SPEAKER_01: What I also...
27:04
SPEAKER_01: What I always mention in conjunction with that is we don't have major agencies
27:09
SPEAKER_01: that have studied this.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: We should have decades of data of the problem,
27:14
SPEAKER_01: how it manifests, the signs of it, how to prevent it.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: Everything that I have read on this topic is so reactionary that it's ridiculous.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: It has to take something like Peoria where the police come in and raid the place.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: Then all of a sudden it's okay.
27:29
SPEAKER_01: Maybe they saw something wrong.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: There's all sorts of evidence just in the police report itself of a child or
27:37
SPEAKER_01: a former student saying, hey,
27:39
SPEAKER_01: we did report this,
27:40
SPEAKER_01: failed mandated reporting,
27:41
SPEAKER_01: which we can talk about that in a minute, all over the place.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: And so the research should be.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: I think a clear picture when it comes to an epidemic like this,
27:48
SPEAKER_01: this is entirely preventative,
27:50
SPEAKER_01: even if it's just training teachers on how to behave with
28:01
SPEAKER_01: Quirky does not make them a pervert.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: Like, there are socially awkward people that just make you laugh without even trying.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: Those people are a wealthy person.
28:17
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm just throwing that out there.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: We have a little bit of data.
28:23
SPEAKER_01: We're not ready to call everything completed or call everything well-researched,
28:28
SPEAKER_01: but looking into it is very important.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: The kids are depending on us to do that.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: yes.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: And so...
28:53
SPEAKER_01: Okay,
28:54
SPEAKER_01: this might seem like an obvious question because of everything that we've talked
28:57
SPEAKER_01: about up to this point,
28:58
SPEAKER_01: but do you feel,
28:59
SPEAKER_01: do you think,
29:00
SPEAKER_01: that school districts have a fiduciary responsibility
29:03
SPEAKER_01: to de-escalate these discussions around sexual abuse cases, right?
29:07
SPEAKER_01: So we talked about the Penalties.
29:09
SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, the loss of federal funds because of the exposure.
29:13
SPEAKER_01: But here's the mindset that I have.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: I know I'm throwing out like multiple things, but I'll come back to the question.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: I've always thought the mindset of administrators and school boards is
29:22
SPEAKER_01: that they would rather risk a And just pass the trash.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: I think that they do not look at that risk enough.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: And I believe there's some research about the payouts that have occurred in California.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: I think the LA Unified School District,
29:56
SPEAKER_00: their mishandling of sexual misconduct allegations have just resulted.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: That resulted in massive, massive litigation costs and losses for the district.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: So they are not paying attention to those risks enough.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: It might seem a little cynical to be looking at the financial harms rather than
30:12
SPEAKER_00: the actual personal harms suffered by these students.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: But really, I mean,
30:15
SPEAKER_00: if we're going to get the attention of school districts,
30:17
SPEAKER_00: often it does have to be through the wallet and the bank accounts of
30:20
SPEAKER_00: the school district.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: So they are not paying attention to those risks enough.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: They have not only a duty to protect their students against sexual assault and
30:30
SPEAKER_00: But certainly,
30:31
SPEAKER_00: they have a duty to not waste a ton of money basically defending lawsuits
30:36
SPEAKER_00: or paying out to victims of this sexual abuse.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: But at the root, I mean,
30:41
SPEAKER_00: they have to abide by their federal obligations,
30:43
SPEAKER_00: they have to take these allegations seriously,
30:46
SPEAKER_00: and they have to abide by the Every Student Succeeds Act obligations
30:50
SPEAKER_00: that they have not to pass the trash.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a fair point.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: I think school districts,
30:55
SPEAKER_01: if they feel like they can outrun the controversy and just continue,
30:58
SPEAKER_01: is probably more so where their mindset would be.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: Financially,
31:01
SPEAKER_01: it's no problem for them if they can just pass another bond
31:05
SPEAKER_01: or pass another override.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: I also just wanted to say I agree with you.
31:12
SPEAKER_01: This is not to be insensitive to any victims or families that may have suffered,
31:16
SPEAKER_01: but because public schools,
31:17
SPEAKER_01: they are such a behemoth, they're bottomless money, bottomless resources.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: And it's not just the federal tax dollars.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: They have money from different institutions that partner with them,
31:28
SPEAKER_01: programs that are coming into the district, and it's financially lucrative.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: So besides just our tax dollars going into it, it's massive.
31:35
SPEAKER_01: I even saw recently, this is There's not a lot of Black people.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: And if you can bring some negative publicity and lawsuits to a school district,
31:54
SPEAKER_01: it typically gets their attention, I'd say.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: I have no argument with you that the school districts are financially motivated.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: Federal funding usually constitutes about 10% or so on average of school districts funding.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: But when you talk about taking away their federal funding, I think 10% is a lot.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: And obviously state funding is a lot more, but they sit up and they take notice.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: And I think the bill is really coming due.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: I think what we're talking about with like the number of The bill is coming due
32:39
SPEAKER_00: because people are actually paying attention to their rights and they are starting
32:42
SPEAKER_00: to understand.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: We need to tell people what their rights are and what parents are entitled to,
32:57
SPEAKER_00: what kind of information they need.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: But I think people are starting to pay attention to what's happening
33:02
SPEAKER_00: during their kids' school day.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: I think there's certainly a movement out there
33:05
SPEAKER_00: that is having parents actually assert And I think there's going to be more and more
33:09
SPEAKER_00: of that.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: So school districts need to need to pay attention.
33:24
SPEAKER_01: You're right.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm definitely a part of that movement of letting parents know what their rights are.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: 110%, I believe that God gives parents the children, not the government.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: I also like to let people know that the rights are already there.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: Parental rights legislation, it's cement.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: They really have no leg to stand on.
33:47
SPEAKER_01: In the situation in my home district,
33:49
SPEAKER_01: between the board lawyer,
33:50
SPEAKER_01: the board president,
33:51
SPEAKER_01: and the executive administration over in our PR department,
33:55
SPEAKER_01: They just decided, well,
33:56
SPEAKER_01: we're going to refuse to comply with this search warrant because of FERPA,
34:00
SPEAKER_01: because of Title IX.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: And if y'all remember earlier in the podcast, I talked about those tiers of law.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, Title IX is law and then FERPA is attached to that.
34:10
SPEAKER_01: Because we have that parental rights legislation,
34:12
SPEAKER_01: that's actually a constitutional amended thing.
34:17
SPEAKER_01: So for a school district to misinterpret those privacy laws and rank that
34:22
SPEAKER_01: above what is constitutionally protected as the rights of the parents,
34:27
SPEAKER_01: what's your take on how these privacy laws are being twisted?
34:31
SPEAKER_00: I think that school districts are not paying attention.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: Usually I deal with the converse situation where they don't allow parents
34:36
SPEAKER_00: to have information about their kids,
34:38
SPEAKER_00: which they're completely entitled to both as a matter of federal law under FERPA,
34:43
SPEAKER_00: as you point out, and also parents' constitutional right to direct the upbringing.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, let me clarify.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: Title IX was mainly what they mentioned, right?
35:05
SPEAKER_01: And because the information is not redacted,
35:09
SPEAKER_01: that was their thing as well,
35:10
SPEAKER_01: we need more time and more instruction on what needs to be redacted
35:14
SPEAKER_01: before we hand it over to the police.
35:15
SPEAKER_01: Mind you, this is a signed search warrant.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: The judge that they went to is familiar with.
35:20
SPEAKER_01: Right.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: And so they claimed that they wanted more time under Title IX
35:42
SPEAKER_01: because there was other investigations that were open to redact those files
35:46
SPEAKER_01: and make sure that they were handing the police officers just enough
35:49
SPEAKER_01: of what they need.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: So that was the rejection.
35:51
SPEAKER_01: Where FERPA comes in is the misinterpreting of Title IX as far as public facilities go.
35:57
SPEAKER_01: If a child is identifying as a different gender at school or something like
36:00
SPEAKER_01: that might be going on, they may use FERPA as a way to block the Absolutely.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: All the time.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: We actually filed a complaint with the Department of Education,
36:13
SPEAKER_00: the Student Privacy Policy Office,
36:15
SPEAKER_00: about four districts in the state of Kansas,
36:18
SPEAKER_00: of all places, that are trying to shut parents.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: I think that's wrong.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: Here's another ironic fact for you.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: Our board president works for Phoenix PD.
37:19
SPEAKER_01: So he is without excuse for not complying with that search warrant.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: We have to have some sort of good faith in our law enforcement.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: This is not a PR thing.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: It may be for you because you're on the board and it may be for administrators,
37:32
SPEAKER_01: but for the police, part of it, all right?
37:34
SPEAKER_01: So there is politics in police work.
37:35
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that there's not.
37:37
SPEAKER_01: But I think ultimately they are looking for evidence of a crime so
37:41
SPEAKER_01: that they can assess charges against perpetrators,
37:43
SPEAKER_01: get these people out of our community,
37:45
SPEAKER_01: off the streets, if it turns out that they
37:47
SPEAKER_00: are guilty of something.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: That should be I think just don't accept that you're not entitled to information
37:50
SPEAKER_01: about your kids and your kids' well-being.
37:52
SPEAKER_01: Parents have the right to know what's happening with their kids during the school day.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: They have the right to know that their kids are safe.
37:58
SPEAKER_01: Schools need to be providing information and treating parents as a partner rather
38:01
SPEAKER_01: than an obstacle.