Baton Rouge Advocate. October 2, 2008, Page 1A.
Another reported sexual assault at the Louisiana School for the Deaf prompted state Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek to announce Wednesday he is considering major changes at the state-run school.
During a chartered bus ride taking students home to north Louisiana on Friday, a high-school aged male student allegedly sexually assaulted an elementary school-age girl, Pastorek said.
The boy involved is 16 and the girl 6, said Mark Dennis, a spokesman for State Police Troop F. Louisiana State Police detectives are investigating.
“I’m here today to acknowledge that we have a duty as educators to maintain the safety of our children,” Pastorek said during a 40-minute news conference at which there was no sign language interpreter. “On Friday we were unable to complete that duty.”
The announcement came on the heels of an Advocate investigative report published Sunday that found a pattern of sexual misconduct involving both students with other students and staff with students.
Friday’s reported assault began on the back seat and continued when the boy locked himself and the girl in the bus bathroom, Pastorek said. The extent of the alleged sexual assault is not yet known.
The incident came to light when the boy confessed to a teacher on Monday, Pastorek said.
“This is so disturbing to me,” Pastorek said through tears. “I don’t want this to happen again, and we’re going to do what needs to be done to assure that it won’t.”
The bus was transporting 14 students home from the Louisiana School for the Deaf and the Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired, Pastorek said. A chaperone from each school was present on the bus.
The boy had past behavioral problems and a chaperone was required to sit next to him on all bus trips, Pastorek said. He said the chaperone failed to perform that duty.
Another student tried to inform the chaperone from the deaf school what was occurring, Pastorek said, but the chaperone did not understand what the student was signing and dismissed the student’s concerns.
The chaperone, a residential advisor at the school for one year, did not know sign language when she was hired, he said. Pastorek fired her Wednesday.
The scarcity of applicants fluent in American Sign Language means that the school often has to hire people who lack the skill and train them on the job, interim school Director Kenneth David said.
Residential advisors make from $790 to $906 biweekly, David said in an e-mail.
The boy will not be allowed to return to school, Pastorek said. The girl involved in the incident is at home with her family, and is receiving counseling, he said.
The school has the unique challenge of dealing with students with multiple disabilities, and, often, behavioral problems, Pastorek said.
“As I look at these kinds of challenges that we’re being asked to manage in the school, I question whether we should be doing it,” Pastorek said. “And yet I’m told that the law requires us to do it.”
Federal law, specifically the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, requires states to provide all children with disabilities with a free and appropriate public education.
Pastorek said he has questioned whether having a single state-run deaf school is the appropriate model to follow.
“I think we have to look at all options,” Pastorek said. “I am not saying we are looking at closing the school, but we have to look at all options.”
Among the options Pastorek listed were bringing a different management team on the campus, turning the school into some kind of charter or opening regional deaf schools around the state.
Pastorek added that parents have pleaded with him to keep the school open, as they say it provides a specialized education that could not be obtained in the students’ home districts.
After five adults were arrested during the 2007-08 school year, Pastorek hired a pair of consultants in May to evaluate the school’s response to previous incidents of sexual misconduct.
Their report is due to school officials later this week, Pastorek said.
Those consultants told Pastorek in early August that sexual misconduct is typically higher in residential educational settings, he said.
“I don’t care how common or difficult the problem is,” Pastorek wrote in a news release. “I’m not going to accept that there is nothing we can do to ensure the safety of each child in our care, every second they are entrusted to us. … When a child is so young and vulnerable, we must commit to do everything within our power to ensure that this horrible situation is not repeated.”
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