What will Happen?

Hello friends, 

There will be a time when none of the known perpetrators will be employed in the Kirkwood Schools. The abusive principal will be gone and will not be able to work in other districts.
There will be a time when lawsuits against the District and/or against perpetrators will be won and some serious settlements will be made, and this will be made known to a broad group of people, and will be in national news.
There will be a time when the District, whoever is still remaining and whoever fills their emptied positions, seriously apologizes to the survivors and to the community for decades of tolerated sexual abuse of a huge number of children in Kirkwood schools.
Due to the perpetrators and to those who saw fit to cover up their crimes, becoming complicit in yet more crimes by enabling the perpetrators, what has occurred in Kirkwood became one of the largest revealed cases of institutionalized sexual abuse in US History. It may be the largest if the whole truth were known. At least 50 years of abuse with at least 30 perpetrators...acting in impunity, the perpetrators including some principals....and a simultaneous cover up, with thousands of instances of sexual abuse occurring during these decades causes this to be an horrific example of what happens in many schools across our nation and fails to gain attention, let alone justice and eradication. This will all become known and is becoming known locally and nationally. The Secretary of Education of the USA, has been notified as have many human rights organizations, as have reporters, senators and representatives and other persons in government, on down to the local community.
The refusal of the District, of the Superintendent, of the School Board, to deal with this in a straightforward "high road" approach, their opting for a wagon circling, evasive, sandbagging, process, no doubt "lawyering up," as they know they face an overwhelming power: truth about decades of protected systemic sexual abuse, is their decision and that decision will meet with blowback in varying degrees to all participating in or taking that decision. The high road was missed: to choose to be an example of what to do when confronted by those who know best...survivors...regarding what was and is a culture of sexual abuse. They might have come clean quickly, admitted to what occurred, assisted the investigation to be as thorough as it might have been. Past principals might have shared all they knew, even if it was self-incriminating, might have owned up to the truth and apologized and taken the consequences of their actions. Faculty, present or past, might have stepped up to break their silence. They could even have done so anonymously! Former students who witnessed sexual abuse of their classmates and who did nothing at the time (they were kids...there were great incentives to be silent I realize) might be honest now and say, "Yeah, many of us knew that what Mr. So and So was doing was really wrong but we were intimidated or didn't get how serious it was or we didn't want to get in trouble...etc." Undoubtedly many former jocks knew that some of their coaches were sexual predators although they might not have known that term. Jack Collier? Come on? Many of "Jack's Jocks," were at his parties and witnessed or had a pretty clear idea what he was up to with students there. But you are silent. Eventually most of this will be known.
As an observer and ally, it is easy to sense that it is extremely difficult for survivors to do the work they are doing to see that children are no longer sexually abused in the Kirkwood schools by teachers and staff, that they are in a straight uphill battle as they persist, that they face scorn, more rejection, that they are seen as the problem, that they are re-victimized and that there is great incentive to cease now, even as far as they have come, given the continued resistance and apparent apathy they confront. But I also am aware that they are carrying something the opponents, the deniers, those invested in images and face, the careerists, and the ashamed and hiding, do not have:
the TRUTH.
The Truth will see the predictions made above come to pass. The Truth will be made known and, to the extent it has already been disseminated sees those who try to hide truth running for lawyers, hiding behind well crafted evasions, trying to sandbag with twisted terminologies in policies, doing whatever they can to protect their vunerabliities, vulnerabilities they created by directly participating in or by complicity in covering up sexual abuse of children.
May we all visualize, daily, what will come to pass, the success that has already occurred and the longer range accomplishments that will be made. I hope we can all envision a school system free of sexual predators. I hope we know this is what will be achieved and that Truth is the tool that will see these things come to pass.

I thank you for your solidarity with each other, with the survivors and for the children,