Seattle Schools Needs to Do Better - NOW

Update 3:

Kids, the only thing I can say at this point is that this story has legs. Or rather, a deep taproot. 

Because I am not journalist (just a citizen reporter) plus where I live, I can't fully investigate it.

However, I found something and when I spoke to two actual journalists, they had found the same thing. And I believe they are both going to try to get down that taproot. 

What is terrible is how many people along the path of this story who looked away or just did not act on what was said to them by not one, but two students. (The second student that I speak of was not sexually abused as was the girl in this vile coach situation. However, that second student was used by adults for their purposes.)

So I will continue to follow this story as more information becomes available. I can say that it may become likely that former Garfield High School principal, Ted Howard III, will look more and more culpable.

And by the way, Mr. Howard is the district's Accountability Officer which entails this:

• Assuring the implementation of procedures associated with policies approved by the School Board and Superintendent Jones
• Performance measures
• Monitoring of district, departmental, and school-based administrative and instructional programs.
• Community and School Partnerships
• Monitoring data tied explicitly to student achievement and school improvement planning
• Ensures district practices comply with board, state, and federal policies

I'd love to know exactly how he does all this and what his actual work looks like. As well, I see one error in the wording of his job. The Board alone approves policies, not the Superintendent. After a policy is voted in, THEN the procedure to implement the policy is created by the Superintendent.

Lastly, it appears at this juncture that there may be a Board director who also is part of this taproot. Nothing illegal appears to have been done by this director but unethical? Possibly.

Stay tuned. 

end of update

 

Update 2: So apparently some of the article was written when KUOW had a lot on its plate (including layoffs which I reported on). Here is what is now written about Director Michelle Sarju's daughter.

Another reporting misstep in Hall’s case, investigators found, happened at the Southeast campus of Interagency Academy, a public school in Seattle’s Columbia City neighborhood.

According to a district investigator, a former Interagency staff member, Nyasha Sarju, told her “that an Interagency student told her that Mr. Hall had made advances towards her when she worked with him at Rainier Vista,” two years prior, when the girl was 16 years old. Sarju, a former Garfield student athlete, had close ties to the basketball team and told the investigator that she felt the relationship between the players and coaches was too cozy. Her mom is board member Michelle Sarju.

Sarju said she asked the woman, who was 18 at this point, if she wanted to talk to someone about what happened, but the woman said no. Sarju never reported the allegation to district officials, the investigation found, “a violation of the District on reporting these types of allegations.”

Asked for comment, Sarju told KUOW by email that the investigator misquoted her.

"I shared that the student said he was weird, and [the investigator] interpreted that as he made 'advances,'" Sarju said. She said the comment the student made was concerning in hindsight, but not at the time.

“There was no allegation,” Sarju wrote.

 That's quite the detailed statement from the investigator versus Sarju's which is "he was weird" and the student made "no allegation." But she also says, that the relationship between players and coaches was "too cozy." 

Also, what happened to the part about the coach Walter Jones being Nyasha Sarju's foster sister?

I think the district needs a new investigation.

I think Director Sarju should explain who all these people are to her and be prepared to recuse herself on any issues related to this investigation.  Because in her Financial Interest and Potential Conflicts of Interest from December 2023, she does not list her daughter as working for the district and yet Ms. Sarju's LinkedIn page says she's still working at Interagency. But in the the Personnel Report of Feb 2. 2021, it says Ms. Sarju left SPS. It's all a bit confusing.

I also think the district needs be prepared to pay out millions to this student. And that's on them because there is NO WAY that multiple people didn't have some inkling or awareness or even knowledge of this situation. 

end of update

 Update: you'll note below that I quoted the KUOW story on a connection between one staffer and Director Michelle Sarju. But when I went back to the KUOW website, those sentences were pulled without explanation. 

I will do my best to try to figure it all out but it's odd that a newstory would change without some kind of notation.

end of update

Remember this post I wrote a few months back, Garfield High School Scandal Revealed By Girl Assaulted by Two Different Coaches? Here's the story via KUOW:

Two former coaches from Garfield High School in Seattle have been accused of sexually assaulting a girl who played on the school’s basketball team.

One assaulted the girl when she was 13 in 2013, the other coach in 2017 when she was 17.  The first coach is Walter Junior Jones and the other is Marvin Wayne Hall. 

Walter Jones had been forced to resign from coaching at Ballard High School in 2008, and was barred from employment or volunteer work in Seattle Public Schools as a result, according to a Seattle Police Department investigation.

A Seattle Public Schools investigation found Hall committed sexual misconduct and boundary violations with students, including telling another girl he had a “crush” on her. That girl reportedly told her father, an assistant coach on the team. Hall has not been charged with a crime.

Tomás Gahan, the personal attorney for the now 24-year-old woman, called the school’s athletic department a “predatory environment,” and said that the woman is only now grappling with the toll it took on her childhood.

Well, KUOW did a recent even deeper dive and what they found is really not good.

• A coach allowed to work at a Seattle high school – despite being barred from the district.
• An abandoned sexual abuse investigation.
• No requirement that school districts report abusive coaches to the state to prevent their hire elsewhere.

Sexual abuse allegations against two former coaches at Garfield High School in Seattle reveal numerous failures and weaknesses in the oversight system meant to protect children in schools.

Two Washington state laws designed to keep abusive teachers out of the classroom — and to report suspected abuse of students — do not typically apply to staff without state certificates, which is often the case with coaches.

Staff without state certificates got missed in this law? That needs to change. Maybe President Liza Rankin who is the Board legislative liason might look into that. 

The state Office of Professional Practices “currently does not have [disciplinary] recourse within the law if certification is not at stake,” said Catherine Slagle, who heads the office within the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

“There are some states that do require coaches to hold certification issued by their state department of education,” said Slagle. California, New York, Arizona and Florida are among the states that require coaches to be certificated. Washington does not.

Slagle said a law requiring coach certification would enable her office to investigate and discipline serious misconduct by coaches, up to permanently revoking their certificates.

KUOW reports that one of the coaches, Walter Junior Jones has pleaded not guilty to two felony rape charges.  The other coach, Marvin Waye Hall, was fired as coach of the Garfield girls basketball team in 2022. He says nothing happened.  Jones starts his trial in July and Hall is under investigation by the King County Prosecutor. 

The VERY serious part comes in here (bold mine):

Multiple district staff members mishandled allegations of sexual misconduct by Marvin Hall, a district investigation shows. Some did not report suspected abuse at all; others reported it to the wrong authorities.

State law requires that professional school staff report suspected child abuse or neglect to police or Child Protective Services. That includes certificated staff, like teachers, counselors, and principals — but not non-certificated staff, including coaches, instructional assistants, cafeteria workers, and secretaries.

Although Seattle Public Schools requires all school staff, regardless of position, to report suspected abuse to their principal or “proper administrator,” and to the district safety and security department, that did not consistently happen in the Garfield cases.

Numerous district staff are cited in the article. But one name stands out - Nyasha Sarju.

A former Interagency staff member, Nyasha Sarju, told the district investigator “that an Interagency student told her that Mr. Hall had made advances towards her when she worked with him at Rainier Vista,” when the girl was 16 years old. Sarju never reported the allegation to district officials, the investigation found, “a violation of the District on reporting these types of allegations.”

Yes, Nyasha Sarju is the daughter of Seattle School Board director Michelle Sarju. And....

The other accused coach, Walter Jones, was her foster brother, and she also played basketball on the Garfield girls’ team about a decade ago.

Was Director Sarju Mr. Jones' foster mother?

Asked for comment, Nyasha Sarju told KUOW by email that the investigator misquoted her, and that the student had only told Sarju that the student had called Hall “weird” — not that he made advances toward her. “There was no allegation,” Sarju wrote.

Well, that's odd. How did the investigator get what Sarju said so very wrong? I'm guessing he may have both audio and notes from that interview. 

Many school districts expand their mandatory reporting obligations to all employees, even though the law only speaks to certificated staff,” (Shannon) McMinimee said.

Some districts made that change following the notorious 1996 child rape case involving Highline School District teacher Mary Kay LeTourneau and a sixth-grade student, in which a school custodian witnessed the abuse, McMinimee said.

Hall had two positions - one as the girls basketball coach and the other as high school security staff. So the district fired him as coach and he resigned as security staff. 

When Hall then resigned from his other position, on the high school’s security staff, the district informed him that because he resigned during an investigation, he was ineligible for re-hire in the district.

Hall’s resignation also halted the district’s investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against him, the investigation report said.

In the case of Marvin Hall, the district launched a second investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against him after receiving photograph and text message records between Hall and the alleged victim. The investigator then concluded that the sexual misconduct allegations were substantiated.

So the district only fully investigated this coach AFTER receiving hard evidence. How terrible for that young woman, then a girl. 

Although it is standard practice in Seattle Public Schools to stop investigations when accused employees resign, McMinimee said that investigating staff abuse allegations is about much more than deciding whether to fire them.

“Oftentimes, the removal of one staff member doesn't change an environment if the environment itself has allowed for this behavior to occur over time,” McMinimee said. Completing abuse investigations also allows districts to make thorough reports to law enforcement and the state — and to future employers considering hiring the staff member.

School districts are also allowed by state law to expunge records of sexual misconduct allegations that have not been substantiated in an investigation.

What?! A student can have been abused or misused and just because someone quits, the district stops its investigation? Maybe there are lessons to be learned but not if you don't finish an investigation. I find that shocking.

Without a complete investigation, “You just say nothing, and then the person stays in the system,” she (McMinimee) said.

It will take some thinking about what needs to happen but I can say that Director Sarju should recuse herself from some discussions about high schools.