At the end of the school day On Wednesday June 1st. I received a text from my daughter “mommy I don’t know how to tell you this but I was in the assistant principal office all day. She’s going to call you. A boy was caught taking photos of my butt”. The event that led to this text is stated below and the reason that we are petitioning congress to make a very needed change. 

Upon receiving this message I went up to the school. I had never been notified by authorities yet my minor daughter had already been questioned by the assistant principal and provided a written statement. I met with both the assistant principal and the SRO for the school. Due to privacy laws to protect the male student the information provided to us was limited. Where was the protection for my daughter? One thing that was clear was that my daughter was not protected from this sexual in nature deviant act.

A male student was witnessed  photographing my daughter while she stood for a lab project, innocent, carefree and unaware until it was brought to her attention-then shaking her to her core. There were 52 photos taken of her behind during 1 class period and all the police officer could tell me was “there is nothing illegal here. He is free to take photos in a public place”. The sheer number of photos taken in a 41 minute period is alarming to say the least.  There were thousands of photos on this phone all of the same nature and we still are not certain how many are of my daughter or what the intended purpose behind taking them is.

To my understanding a school is a safe place. A Safe haven that we send our children to and trust they will not be sexually prayed upon while they are there. That they are free to be comfortable so that they can grow and learn to the best of their abilities. That staff and administration do what they can to ensure that this happens. There were teachers present this day in a class where there is supposed to be no cell phones but they were allowed use to take photos of their projects. My daughter is not his project, or is she? We do not know the mind of this young man or extent to what actions he did take with these photos, could take or would take but we do know what was seen in his phone was borderline criminal and we believe that this act of taking photos without permission on school grounds, should be changed to a criminal one.

I also believe a school is a government building and with that said I would like to propose an amendment to the public photo laws that make it illegal for a student to create a hostile environment by taking unsolicited photos of another student, specifically of their private body parts without consent.                                      

Studies have shown children learn better when phones are not present in the classroom. City schools have a no cell phone policy. Japan has such a large problem with perverts on their trains that it is illegal to have a camera that doesn’t make a sound when taking a photo. Since we do not have that here I urge you to understand the aggregate  behavior by this young man, this was not just a loved crush teen, the behavior is stalker like in nature. We have filed a DASA report and subsequent meetings with administration.

These acts are predatory. Let’s protect other students from this happening. Let’s protect other parents from having to hear a police officer tell them “there’s nothing I can do” after your daughter was just violated and robbed of her safety. Lets protect our SRO’s so that they never have to look at a parent and say this again.  Let’s protect the schools from having to worry about an incident like this ever happening again. The student had photos of teachers as well in this same sexual manner. Let’s protect my daughter from having to worry that this will ever happen to her again so that she can continue to remain the exemplary scholar that she is. She came home the following day saying “I just didn’t stand in lab today, idk I just felt weird and not safe”.

Please help me enact Wolff’s law to change this very outdated law that was created long before we all walked around with a camera in our pocket. 

There is a well known sex trafficking case -Courtney Litvak, if you have never heard this story and are hesitant about signing, please look into her story.  She was sold into a sex traffic ring and it all started by a HS student sharing a video of her to sex traffickers. This is the world we live in and we need to update and change these laws to protect our children. This isn’t just about my daughter. We can’t change what happened to her but we can change it from happening to any of your children. It takes a village, please stand with me. Together we can make our schools safer for all of our children.