I need to share this with someone. This kind of thing needs to be prevented at all costs.
About a year ago one of my old classmates at Mission Viejo High School in Orange County posted on Facebook that my beloved drama teacher, whose program was my entire life in high school, allowed her husband to groom her and sexually abuse her in 1996, when she was 15. They allegedly took her into their home, told her they were family, convinced her they were in a relationship, and put it in writing. She has receipts: love letters from my teacher's husband; letters from uncaring administrators who acknowledged his inappropriate behavior but explained why they weren't going to act; police reports.
The statute of limitations on criminal charges had expired, so my friend focused on sounding the alarm any other way she could: by showing up at school board meetings and telling her story. By calling education officials in Sacramento and getting his substitute credential revoked. By getting him banned from campus. Every few years she'd feel strong enough to try again, only to be discouraged when nothing changed.
Because he never stopped coming to campus. And he didn't care who knew it — he posted photo evidence to Facebook. And soon a generation of students had a Jim and Kathy Harris story: of students being taken back to their house and given alcohol and drugs; of kids being whisked out of town on field trips and groped; of inappropriate comments about sex; of students being filmed in various states of undress with cameras Jim had hidden around the house. And the most horrifying part of all of this: Kathy Harris still teaches there. She's the performing arts coordinator for the entire district. And she still lets Jim around her kids — I've seen video proof.
After I read my friend's Facebook post last June, I felt instantly that she was telling the truth. Jim Harris was always lurking around us, "flirting" with us, and filming us. But we were too young to know that this was a crime, because at 15 you can't consent. What's most troubling is that the Saddleback Valley School District didn't put a stop to this when it was first reported 20 years ago, and by ignoring this problem, they failed to protect generations of students. Officials told my friend that the performing arts program, which wins regional awards, brings joy to so many people and she should just let this go. But since the Facebook post, stories about Jim Harris's creepy behavior from current Mission Viejo High School students and recent alumni have poured out.
This is exactly what my friend, a very brave woman named Yara Wilde, had hoped to prevent when she first reported him to the district all those years ago. Out of options, she filed a lawsuit, and another one of her classmates has joined it, and this morning the Los Angeles Times wrote a beautiful story about it ("They were groomed and groped, but O.C. school 'turned a blind eye' for decades, suit alleges"), and I am so proud of her.
I wanted to share this with all of you because I can't believe this goes on, still. Not just the crime but the failure of trusted adults to stop it. And Jim Harris wasn't the only predator at my high school in the early 1990s — there were many others, but those victims (one of whom is a close friend of mine) don't feel comfortable coming forward yet. My high school is turning out to be the West Coast Horace Mann. And that is just heartbreaking. I don't want this to be what my high school is known for. But now I fear it will.
Another part of this that's hard to swallow: At the age of 44 I realized that some of the best years of my life were the worst years of some of my classmates' lives. This kind of thing taints your memories; you end up re-examining every exchange you ever had in the theater, in the drama classroom, on the field trip. Doing so, incredibly, has unearthed even more victims. I've mined my own past and found evidence of predatory behavior on the part of teachers.
That's right: The child sex abuse problem at my high school was so bad that I found evidence of it in old photos, letters, and video footage.
Don't let this be your school. There needs to be education around this. Something must change.
Submitted March 26, 2022 at 07:21PM by JennyPenny112277 https://ift.tt/Gz5AVpK
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario