Coalition Pushes for Laws to Protect Kids from Abusive Teachers
Lawmakers join abuse victims and their advocates at the Federal Courthouse in Philadelphia to push for the passage of state and national legislation to protect students from sexual misconduct of teachers.
Unfortunately, one only has to turn on the television or browse news headlines to find an instance of teacher sexual misconduct. From a California teacher accused of having sex with a student to 16 NYC teachers accused of exhibiting ‘pervy conduct’ in the classroom, these instances must come to a halt.
Terri Miller is the president of the national nonprofit: Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation, the organization that’s leading the coalition. She wants to see legislation to prohibit something known as “passing the trash.”
“Passing the trash is the practice of allowing teachers who have engaged in sexual misconduct with students, to quietly walk away and find employment in another classroom somewhere else,” Miller said.
Miller says statistics show that educators who abuse kids work in a minimum of three school settings before they’re ever reported and punished.
Sign the “Passing the trash” petition here to show Governor Corbett that this practice is unacceptable.
Don’t live in Pennsylvania? Then be sure to check out the national effort to prevent passing the trash between states, The Jeremy Bell Act.
