Teacher Smackdown

In Barnwell, South Carolina, Steve Walling was served with six (!) warrants for counts of committing a lewd act on a child under 16. He was caught “improperly touching children” according to news reports.

Walling is a physical education teacher at Barnwell Elementary School. He also helps coach the middle school football team.

Police say the incidents involved a fourth grade girl and happened during the past two years. I am not sure that this means the sexual abuse started when she was in second grade - that means the girl was around seven-years-old folks! Still a fourth grader is only nine years old.

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UPDATE to Teacher Kelsey Peterson Caught in Mexico After Kidnapping 13-Year-Old Student

Kelsey Peterson, 25, the Nebraska middle school teacher who fled to Mexico with her 13-year-old student, Fernando Rodriguez, has agreed to be returned from California to Nebraska. She faces federal charges that she fled to Mexico for the purpose of having sex with the boy.

It is expected that Peterson will be sent back to Nebraska to face federal charges of crossing state lines to have sex with a minor. The offense is punishable by 10 years to life in prison. Peterson also faces several charges in state court including felony kidnapping and child abuse. Peterson will not be prosecuted in both federal and state court, but a decision on which court will handle the case has not yet been made. (I am hoping for federal court since she fled through several states into a foreign country.)

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In Las Vegas, special education teacher Mamie Hubbard-Washington,64, is accused of child abuse against her students. She beat her seven- and eight-year-old special education students at Doris Reed Elementary with a yard stick and grabbed them so hard that she left bruises. This wonderful example of a teacher is charged with five felony child abuse counts.

Hubbard-Washington was recently in court for her preliminary hearing. Her assistants, the school’s principal, and the children’s parents took the stand. They testified that the helpless special needs children - some of whom can not talk - were abused.

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New Jersey’s Home News Tribune explores a recent rash of teacher sex abuse cases in Middlesex county in Districts hit by educator sex crimes. Greg Tufaro’s comprehensive article not only explores the “epidemic” but looks at the problem of some states not requiring that sexual abuse of children be reported to police:

In instances in which a teacher voluntarily surrenders his or her certificate without yet being criminally convicted of sexual contact with a minor, the forfeiture is accepted in a form letter with the full effect of a revocation but without details, because the Board of Examiners is not permitted legally to discuss the allegation; it can only confirm the surrender.

Such cases tend to involve a negotiated settlement between the teacher and district and/or teacher and prosecutors. Miller said posting revocations in that manner is problematic because it keeps the criminal charges off the Board of Examiners’ public record.

The article also mentions to websites which you should check out:

educator sex crimes, sexual abuse of children, child abuse, teach-student affair

n Wales, the General Teaching Council upheld claims that teacher Benjamin Warner, 36, abused the five and six-year-olds in his classroom at Sandy Lane Infants School.

According to the school’s head teacher, he could not control his temper.

A teaching assistant saw Warner grabbing a child from a chair by the throat. He then banged the boy’s head on the tiled floor. The woman was so upset that she ran from the sobbing and shouting that he was beating up the child.

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In Ohio, Mark Boster, 46, was charged with unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and importuning. A detective who logged onto a chat room posing as a child was solicited by Boster for oral sex. Your run-of-the-mill internet predator, right? WRONG!

Boster was a Columbus Public Schools teacher and a neglectful foster parent to five boys.

According to Boster’s school personnel file:

This guy was a monster in the classroom, at home with his foster kids, and then on the internet. What was the Ohio Department of Education thinking when they allowed Boster to stay in the classroom as long as he received counseling on appropriate behavior with students? Why didn’t they fire him?

Thank god detectives finally caught Boster being bad online.

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Mark Boster, internet predator, foster parent, child abuse, sexual abuse, soliciting, inappropriate touching, Columbus Public Schools

Parents want an easy way to do background checks, so USA Football is giving half a million dollars to encourage youth leagues to register for background screening services for their coaches through www.USAFootball.com so they can receive gold-standard, fully-managed background screening services at significantly reduced pricing through the National Center for Safety Initiatives (NCSI).

USA Football is the national governing body of youth, high school and international amateur football, and is the first national youth sports organization to make this kind of commitment towards the fight against child predators.

To read the press release, click here. And encourage your school, rec, and competitive sports leagues to sign up today and start doing background checks on their coaches.

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USA Football, background checks, coaches abusing kids, sexual abuse

In Arizona, a group of parents say Sarah Boustila, Arcadia High School’s girls basketball team coach has bullied and verbally abused her players for two years. They told the Scottsdale Unified School District Governing Board that school administrators didn’t do enough to address complaints about Coach Boustil, and have asked that her coaching contract not be renewed.

Boustila is a math teacher at Arcadia High School and has been coaching the girls basketball team since 2005. Parents said they started noticing issues right away when players told their their parents that Boustila used curse words and verbally put down the team after a loss.

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In New Windsor, New York, teacher Rebecca L. Becker, 28, and her aide, Maria E. Zurita, 28, spent Memorial Day weekend at Zurita’s home drinking beer performing sexual acts with two 16-year-old boys from McQuade Children’s Services school.

The teachers are charged with third-degree rape, and endangering the welfare of a child. Becker also faces a charge of third-degree criminal sexual act for performing oral sex on a teenage boy.

When the two boys didn’t show up on Tuesday — both were supposed to be on home visits over the weekend — school officials began investigating. They found 31 explicit letters written over two months detailing a sexual relationship between Becker and one of the students. School official then called police and Child Protective Services.

McQuade Children’s Services school is a facility that works with kids in the foster care system. Many of the children at the school have emotional issues, behavioral problems, or a history of physical or sexual abuse or neglect. Talk about preying on the vunerable.

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[tags]McQuade Children’s Services, Rebecca Becker, Maria Zurit, sexual abuse, sexually explicit letters, rape, oral sex[tags]

The Ann Arundel County, Maryland school board has put the smackdown on the principal of Shipley’s Choice Elementary after she forced students to undergo a strip search for ticks. The school board is investigating allegations of child abuse, and has transferred the principal to their central office.

School leaders say the third grade class took an overnight trip to an outdoor learning center. During the trip students were forced to strip while they were searched for ticks that may carry lyme disease.

Weird thing was that that the principal wasn’t present during the strip searches and wasn’t even on the field trip. She just ordered the teachers to stip the kids to check for tick bites.

Duh.

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In Tulsa, Oklahoma home daycare worker, Vicki Chiles, 42, was charged and arraigned on a felony child abuse and murder charges for abusing an eight-year-old boy in her care and killing two-year-old Joshua Minton.

Chiles was under child abuse investigation for hitting the older boy with a fly swatter 10 and 12 times while chasing him around the room. The Oklahoma Department of Human Services was on their way to shut down the home daycare facility when workers found Joshua with his mouth taped shut. Blood and vomit were found on the floor near the boy.

Chiles told police she bound his hands and taped over his mouth with masking tape because he wouldn’t be quiet during nap time. Joshua lost consciousness and later died at the hospital.

Oklahoma’s Department of Human Services is getting a lot of grief - deservedly so - that if they had followed up on the fly swatting complaint quicker, Joshua wouldn’t be dead. A day late, and one beautiful little boy lost to us all.

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Vicki Chiles, Joshua Minton, daycare, daycare worker, day care, child abuse, bound and gagged

On a field trip to Washington, D.C., teacher Jesus Garcia got drunk, cursed at students, spanked them, and flung one on a bed. And now parents are outraged that no charges were filed against the soccer coach and ESL instructor for Immokalee Community School. Florida’s Department of Children and Families is investigating.

After a five-day field trip to Washington, D.C., five fifth graders were in their room at the Embassy Suites when Garcia told the group he was going downstairs and would return in 10 minutes. He returned an hour later drunk off his ass and smelling like booze.

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Bloomington, Illinois substitute teacher and minister, James C. Love, 37 was arrested on charges that he molested three children after sedating them with an anesthetic agent. He is facing two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and two counts of aggravated battery relating to sedation. According to police, the children were between the ages of 13 and 17 and were abused within the past five weeks.

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In Marianna, Florida, Marianna High School wrestling coach and teacher, Stuart Mahler, may be charged with two counts of child abuse. The sherrif’s office received complaints via the Department of Children and Families abuse hotline. Mahler, who taught physical education and driver’s education, was accused of threatening and causing injury to some students.

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In Maryland, the Howard County Board of Education fired Joseph Samuel Ellis, 26, a Glenelg High School teacher accused of sexually abusing two female students. The board is also in the process of terminating two other teachers charged with sexual offenses - River Hill High School science teacher Alan Beier and Marriotts Ridge High School special education teacher Kirsten Kinley.

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