Critical Facts regarding sexual abusers currently hired by KSD
1. KSDistrict, when asked directly and repeatedly if two of the 30 named sexual abusers are still working for the District, will not answer that question with a simple "yes"" or "no," but moves to two evasive responses.
2. First evasion: to say that the District has done all its own laws and policies require with regard to sexual abuse in the schools.
3. The second evasion is the District’s assertion that there are no CURRENT Kirkwood police investigations of sexual abuse by teachers or staff going on and no CURRENT reports to the Kirkwood police about sexual abuse by teachers or staff in the schools.
Sexual abuse is most often NOT reported to the police, for a variety of reasons, one of them being the poor chance that anything significant will come of doing so. On average, from 1000 instances of sexual abuse, 300 are reported and 56 of those result in felony convictions. Of the 56, only 50 abusers will see any prison time. 95% of the perpetrators will continue to live in impunity. Most are serial abusers.
As well, the process of reporting abuse to police is a second traumatization. The questioning is emotionally very difficult, the physical aspect, in the case of rape or other violent sexual abuse, is extremely difficult to bear. The onus is upon the victim to prove it was rape and was not consensual or invited.
Family, parents of children who are sexually abused, often choose not to pursue the abuse legally, not to report it to police, not to attempt to take the perpetrator to court for many reasons including the stress this would put upon the child, the attention it would draw in the community, the stigma it would cause for the child and the family, and even the harm it might do to the good name of the perpetrator, who is often a highly respected community member!
Clearly the question: Are there any known sexual abusers working for the district can be answered with a “Yes” or a “No.” The District refuses to do so when, saying “No,” would clear them of this grave suspicion. But they cannot do so without lying.
4. The original minutes of the August School Board meeting included the following somewhat coded remark:
“Encompass
8-10 2 current included in the 30 staff
tchr nkms – no further information to look into
p hs-“
“Encompass” is, of course, Encompass Resolutions, the independent investigation company hired to investigate sexual abuse in the Kirkwood Schools.
“8-10” might be a date…August 8th.
“2 current included in the 30 staff” refers to the 30 sexual abuse perpetrators named in the Encompass Report and indicates that there are 2 CURRENT staff from that group.
“tchr-nkms” means “teacher – North Kirkwood Middle School.
“p hs-“ means “Principal, High School.”
It should be noted that, once the remarks from the minutes of the August meeting were made broadly known by survivors, they were deleted from the minutes in an obvious attempt to erase them.
The two evasions as responses the do not answer the key question as well as the note (later deleted) from the August School Board meeting indicate that, indeed, two persons who are named on the list of perpetrators by the independent investigators are CURRENTLY working for the schools. One of these is a teacher at North Kirkwood Middle School. The other is the current principal of the High School, Michael Havener.
This is entirely unacceptable as is the resistance of the District and School Board to deal with this situation in a straightforward transparent and effective manner. Systemic sexual abuse of children in the Kirkwood Schools must be eradicated. Clearly this is not what the Board and authorities responsible are doing nor planning to do. It falls upon the parents of students, the survivors of sexual abuse and the community at large to pressure the District to appropriate and comprehensive action.