School’s Mandated Reports Shield It From Liability

A Pennsylvania federal district court opinion has some valuable lessons for youth-serving organizations. A teacher developed what turned out to be an inappropriate relationship with a seventh-grade student. The contact started over the summer, when the student’s teacher hired him to mow lawns and perform maintenance work at her home and rental properties. After the summer, the school saw several red flags, reported the teacher to child protective services, and followed up with law enforcement when protective services didn’t take any action. The school also implemented rules requiring another person to be always present with the teacher was with the student and forbidding contact out the school setting, but rescinded those rules when the student’s mother consented to the contact.  When the sexual relationship came to light, the student’s mother decided it was all the school’s fault, and sued the school for deliberate indifference to the sexual abuse under 28 U.S.C. § 1983.

The facts that the court recites show several red flags for grooming that every youth organization should recognize:

• The teacher had developed a close personal friendship with the student’s mother, and the student and his siblings referred to her as their “aunt.”
• The teacher took the student on several “all-day” trips to amusement parks during the summer.
• The teacher spent a lot of time riding dirt bikes and fishing with the student.
• Other students at the school were spreading rumors that the student had a sexual relationship with the teacher.
• The teacher was driving the student home from school each day.
• The teacher offered to give the student $500 toward purchasing a dirt bike, but he could not tell the teacher’s husband.
• The teacher allowed at least one underage student to drive her car, but told him not to tell anyone about it.

The school took all of the right steps when it learned of the contact. It reported the teacher’s behavior to the state’s Children and Youth Services and followed up with law enforcement when no investigation resulted. Throughout the investigation, the student continually denied any inappropriate behavior. DYS decided that the charges were unfounded, with the investigator actually telling the student’s mother “that it was one of the few times that she ever felt a hundred percent that there was nothing going on.”  After that, the school rescinded part of its “no-contact-outside-school” order, even though the school superintendent thought the unfounded decision was a mistake.

The affair came to light when the teacher went missing, leaving behind a suicide note. Her husband found text messages from her to the student indicating a sexual relationship. The student became upset and told his mother that the teacher had been sexually abusing him most of the school year.

The student’s mother sued under 28 U,S.C. § 1983, alleging that the change in policy showed that the school had been “deliberately indifferent” to the possibility of sexual abuse. The district court granted summary judgment to the school, holding that the change in policy hadn’t played any “affirmative role in bringing about” the abuse. Even more important, the court found that all of the actions that the school took shielded it from any claim of indifference. Furthermore, the court noted, “it bears repeating” that before the teacher’s disappearance, there was no evidence of any sexual abuse. The student had consistently denied any inappropriate relationship. Furthermore, the student’s mother and siblings insisted to all investigators that the teacher “was a close family friend who interacted with the family regularly, and was even called ‘Aunt Ro’ by the children.”

The standards in your state may differ from that in federal law. Nevertheless, this case has several important lessons for youth organizations as they develop and implement child protection policies:

1. Have a policy about out-of-program contact. Whether you allow it or not is a decision for you to make after considering the factors unique to your program. If you prohibit or limit it, the enforce that limitation consistently. If you allow it, work with your attorney to draft a  release from parents that your state courts will enforce.
2. Be sure that your contact policy includes social media and work arrangements.
3. Know the red flags of grooming, and know the difference between those red flags and characteristics of healthy mentoring.
4. Follow your state’s mandated reporting procedure for any signs that you see of inappropriate behavior.
5. Finally, don’t be afraid to follow up with investigators after you make that report.

It is often hard to know what’s going on inside your organization, especially when an adult manages to lock a young person inside a conspiracy of silence. Serving the children in our care and their families, however, requires that we learn everything we can and pay attention to the behavior that we can observe.

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