Private Boarding Schools: Sometimes a Refuge
You would think that a student who reported sexual abuse by a teacher would not be the recipient of her peers’ and teachers’ contempt and disdain. You would expect that the school would fire said teacher and make amends to her family. But apparently some teachers protect their own. That is what one family discovered after reporting a music teacher’s sexual advances.
“It’s a silent epidemic is what it is,” the girl’s father says. “People are protecting people who aren’t worth protecting. I hope our daughters will have that instilled in them, too — that you report what you know.”
Their daughter finished her education in private boarding schools, unable to endure the backlash her report unleashed.
“Immediately after news of Sperlik’s arrest hit in January 2005, people began questioning the girls’ motives: Why didn’t they come forward sooner? Were they really telling the truth?
Some think their parents simply want money from a lawsuit.
[…]
It was almost too much for the girl, who never anticipated such harsh public scrutiny.”
The troubled teenager dyed her hair black and began a ritual often associated with sexual abuse - cutting. Finally, an attempted suicide landed her in a psychiatric hospital.
“I just can’t take it anymore,” she wrote in a note to her parents.
And neither should parents. Read the article in full and understand that it must be parents who protect their teens’ best interest. Recent reports on sexual abuse perpetrated by teachers, like the one quoted, suggest that all to often, some in the teaching profession are far more interested in protecting their own.
Relevant Tags:private boarding schools, sexual abuse, sexual advances, teachers, teaching profession, troubled teenager
