Not a political diary, I just need to rant.
This is an old joke, I think to myself. Why is Jay telling this one again? He must be cherry picking these rare incidents because they bother him. Although, his standard line is always about how common this is - there's an epidemic of this everywhere - and his joke is about some bizarre new twist to the usual story.
What's this rash, this cold virus, this dandelion weed infestation of sick behavior sweeping around the country enough to become a stale punch line? Let me put it in fark-ese.
Common: Teacher having sex with student
Not as common: Teacher is female
Rare: She teaches at my kids' high school
NIMBY: She was my son's teacher last year
I'm panting with relief: He thought she was just weird
I still can't quite get my head around this. I feel as if I've just extinguished the flames from my hair being on fire.
Somehow, I've always felt it can't happen here. These kind of incidents are rare. It's just another laugh line, right? And besides, lightning can't strike twice...
Until it does. My kids go to school in the highest rated school district in our entire state. Last year, a male middle school teacher/coach/Scoutmaster (for more than two decades) was arrested while soliciting sex from children online. One of my kids was in that particular Scout troop but it's a big group and we hadn't interacted with him very much.
So when my son came home telling me about this vicious rumor going around his school about his former teacher and another kid at the school, I thought immediately that it can't be true. This is just upperclassmen gossip and must be aimed at bullying the kid involved in the rumor. I told him to be careful about spreading this around. If true, the kid needs help. If false, the kid needs help.
I reached the school counselor late this morning. She was evasive but did confirm that the teacher's been fired and the case is being handled by 'HR.' I expressed my concern for the kid in this case and said however old he is, he's the victim because the teacher is an authority figure and I hoped he was getting some help or support. Meaningless platitudes were the response.
Since I wasn't getting any real answers from the school, I called the local paper. Now there's an article in the online version describing that our police department is investigating this incident at my kids' school based on information received from county social services. Names were not named because nothing is certain yet. At least now I know that if social services are involved, there's someone advocating for this kid and that police are taking this report seriously.
What's to sit here any worry about? Why is my head still fuzzy? This is just too close, too often. And I haven't mentioned the incident a year and a half ago where a boy at this same school held a teacher and another student hostage at gunpoint for a couple hours - fired some shots out the window. The teacher in that incident was so unnerved she resigned before the end of the year. One of my kids had that teacher also. Happened to be afterschool that day but - sometimes you win the lottery and you don't even know it - he left the building (the same frikkin section of the building, same floor, yep) about 15 mins before the shooter walked in. Shooter is now in the loony bin.
Like I said - this is the toniest high school in our state - great academics, calm suburban neighborhood, highest graduation rate, etc etc etc We moved here for the schools; I'm usually an advocate of public education.
Somehow I just don't remember anything remotely like any of this back in the day? And I don't think that's because it didn't get reported upon. What's going on?