Friday, November 20, 2009 East Central Illinois

Experts: Officials overly cautious about suspicions

By: Amy F. Reiter

E-mail Story Printer-friendly

Sunday, June 15, 2008

How Urbana and McLean Unit 5 school districts dealt with Jon White is not unique.

There tend to be patterns in how schools respond to suspicions of child sexual abuse, said Charol Shakeshaft, a Virginia Commonwealth University educational leadership professor and author of a 2004 U.S. Department of Education paper on educator sexual misconduct.

Administrators might move a staff member to another school, "thinking, well, they don't know if the allegations are true," said Shakeshaft, who is not familiar with the White case.

Or, she said, if they believe suspicions might be true, "They say to the person, 'If you resign, we won't say anything. Just move on.'"

Or they might fire the person but let him or her keep a teaching certificate. "Therefore, the person can go on to another job," she said.

Even without the teaching certificate, she said, teachers may be able to work at a private school or by getting certified in another state.

By following mandated reporting laws, child sexual predators may be stopped from working in schools permanently.

During White's sentencing in Champaign County, McLean County Unit 5 Assistant Superintendent John Pye said his district did not file a report about White's activities at Colene Hoose Elementary with police or the Department of Children and Family Services.

In Urbana, "the report was received Jan. 29, 2007, and we indicated the investigation," DCFS spokesman Kendall Marlowe said.

"Indicated" is how DCFS identifies a report in which evidence has been found.

Michael Kleppin, a Champaign-area clinical therapist who did the March 2008 sex offender evaluation and risk assessment of White, could not speak to White's or any other client's case but said even if someone doesn't think DCFS would have enough information to investigate, "you make the call. At least you're leaving a marker there."

Perhaps a small incident was an anomaly – an inappropriate remark once in decades. But perhaps there are several of those signals, "a series of things to be taken into consideration, and then you start to develop this picture," Kleppin said.

In his work, Kleppin said, he's had people come to him asking if they should make a call. "My answer was always, 'You call DCFS,' and there were times when the response was 'But what if I'm wrong? I could create a lot of trouble,'" he said.

"Usually, the reason why calls aren't made, you know, the facts could be right in front of their face, but it's 'You know, I don't want to ruin anyone's life. I could be wrong,'" he said. "I'd rather make the call and find out that I'm wrong and breathe a sigh of relief than not make the call and find out that I was right."

When a call is made, Shakeshaft said, child service organizations are "trained to investigate quickly, and they're trained to investigate that if nothing is going on, there's no harm done."

In Illinois, failing to report a suspicion of child abuse or neglect is a Class A misdemeanor for a first violation, a Class 4 felony for additional violations.

In Normal, no charges have been filed against any school district employees. Kim Campbell, assistant state's attorney in McLean County, said to prosecute for not making a report, "we have to have enough proof to proceed beyond a reasonable doubt," she said.

Champaign County State's Attorney Julia Rietz said she has not yet decided whether to file charges against anyone for not making mandated reporter calls.

"At this point," she said, "given that Jon White has filed a motion to reconsider his sentence, and given that the civil suits are just beginning, I want to be very cautious about what we are going to do."

She said that because the offenses were of a sexual nature and against children, the statute of limitations for charging someone for not making a mandated reporter call is 20 years past when the child involved has turned 18.

"So, really, we have 30 years to do this," she said.

REPORTS FROM SCHOOL PERSONNEL DCFS

In both Champaign and McLean counties, mandated reporter calls from school personnel (but not necessarily only about school personnel) in 2007 – the year Jon White was charged – to the Department of Children and Family Services were the highest in at least four years. In terms of reports found to have substantiated evidence of abuse or neglect, called "indicated" by DCFS, incidents went down in Champaign County but up in McLean. The reports are listed first; the "indicated" reports are in parentheses.

County           2004          2005          2006          2007

Champaign    221 (43)   249 (36)   218 (38)   251 (29)

McLean          157 (21)   171 (29)   176 (40)   217 (54)

Other Jon White stories