The District's Real Response
This is good news.
It's beginning to look like Seattle Public Schools is finally going to take real action in response to the reported rape of November, 2012 and how that case exposed district failures in both prevention and response to sexual assault and harassment complaints. The real action from the District now includes improvements to both prevention and response. There had been nothing but talk so far, but now we're starting to see signs of real action - and, of course, the usual amount of forming a committee to make a plan to talk about proposing changes.
This real action includes:
It's beginning to look like Seattle Public Schools is finally going to take real action in response to the reported rape of November, 2012 and how that case exposed district failures in both prevention and response to sexual assault and harassment complaints. The real action from the District now includes improvements to both prevention and response. There had been nothing but talk so far, but now we're starting to see signs of real action - and, of course, the usual amount of forming a committee to make a plan to talk about proposing changes.
This real action includes:
- Significant changes to field trip procedures - done
- A draft revision to the Sexual Harassment procedure - should be complete by September 30
- A task force to work on revisions to the sexual harassment policy - formed by September 30
- Task Force Charter - they will work for a year.
- Task Force Nomination form
- Assignment of Title IX officers
Still remaining are:
- Revisions to the Sexual Harassment Policy (the task force will take a year)
- Training of Title IX Officers (no promises)
- Staff training (Coming soon.)
- Posting of required Title IX notices (Coming soon!)
- Issuance of required written notifications of Title IX rights (referenced in revised procedure)
And, of course:
- Actual compliance
Regrettably, the actual compliance may never come. Better rules don't help if people don't follow them, and Seattle Public Schools has a very poor record when it comes to following rules, enforcing rules, or holding people accountable for violating rules.
But let's give credit where credit is due. The credit should go first to those who did the hard work to shame the District in the national and local press which has caused them to take action. They would never have taken action without that. Credit should also go to those within the District who are now shuffling towards action and those few within the District who are driving that movement against the natural resistance.
Comments
One concern: It calls for a "periodic" review committee whereas the current procedure calls for an annual one.
I don't trust the district with the word "periodic" since they have proven themselves incapable of honest compliance with "annual".
If this is start date, then they needed to apply pressure for six months before the staff made any movement. That's not very good, is it? Especially considering the fact that they had everything - including a policy that required an annual report (that we still don't have) and a procedure requiring an annual task force and review (that we still don't have) - on their side.
If the Board was pushing for this and it took them this long to get this little, then we have a pretty ineffective Board.
The school district is writing new procedures for sexual harassment and assault. That's good.
The school district will convene a task force to review the sexual harassment policy and recommend revisions. That's good too.
But they don't address the problem.
While the new procedures and policies are sure to be an improvement over the old ones, the old ones weren't the problem. The problem was that people didn't follow the old procedures or policies. The state and federal laws, by the way, are not changing, which is fine because there's nothing wrong with them. The problem then, now, and going forward is not that the rules aren't good enough. The problem was, is, and continues to be that people don't follow the rules.
So while I'm gratified to see the District take action to update the procedures and policies, the response will continue to be off-topic and inadequate if they don't address compliance. And I haven't seen one step towards improved compliance. In fact, I haven't even seen anyone lean towards improved compliance.
The District's failure in response to the reported rape at NatureBridge in November 2012 was not a failure of procedure but a failure of compliance. The victim's family didn't complain that the procedures were inadequate, but that compliance was absent. The District, for their part, continue to deny any failure of compliance and continue to defend the non-compliance of their staff. This defense of non-compliance is at the heart of the Distict's failure and no amount of attention or action on peripheral issues will matter if they fail or refuse to address the compliance issue.
The solution for the District is not to write new procedures but to enforce their procedures and to hold people accountable when they violate them. They have the tools to hold people accountable, they simply choose not to use them. Worse, they are not even motivated to try. Their impulse is to protect their reputation instead of the students. Their insistence that no procedures, policies, or laws were violated is not only absurd, it precludes them from doing the exact work they need to do to make steps forward.
So it's great that they are improving the rules, but none of it will matter if they continue to ignore the rules.
Or course they would have been praised if they had taken decisive action in February. Too bad they didn't. Too bad they have been actively participating in the whitewash.
Assuming good intentions, I could envision a scenario where staff said that the new policy would be pushed out too fast if it was done before the end of school, so it was delayed to mid to late summer. That then went another months due to the unforeseen superintendent change and/or scheduling conflicts with the very limited number of meetings and work sessions over the summer.
All of that is speculation. I don't have any inside info into what happened, but I think this is a reasonable scenario that doesn't assume an ineffective board.
That's what we're all about. Why doesn't the District ask us for help? The District has a terrible track record.
SSAIHS
They can, I suppose, determine that all of the failures were committed by Mr. Banda and Mr. Apostle and that none of the current staff violated any policies or procedures in any way. They could make that determination, but I don't think they can do so honestly.
It's what every board candidate says they will do but something that no board has ever done.
Presumptions are different from hard facts.
It took Sue Peters over 2 months to get cost breakdowns of math textbooks and she relentlessly asked multiple times.
http://www.kplu.org/post/seattle-schools-convene-task-force-review-handling-sex-assault-claims
The problem wasn't and isn't bad policies and procedures, so writing new policies and procedures doesn't address the problem. The problems was and is a culture of lawlessness and until the District addresses that culture, then they haven't addressed the problems with their response to the reported rape, they haven't learned anything, and they haven't improved anything.
Why was a teacher reprimanded 9/16/13 but not the Garfield teachers who failed to chaperone resulting in the ecology trip tragedy? How do you believe these teachers should be held accountable when the District failed to do so along with the principal who authorized the trip without a male chaperone? Can you explain why someone was reprimanded in one instance but not in another when there is an obvious correlation between the failure to supervise and the actions students were allowed to take?
Mother