A rash of allegations about sexual misconduct in Gwinnett County schools highlights how difficult it can be to detect and stop relationships between teachers and students before they cross a line.
Three educators in Gwinnett, Georgia’s largest school district, have been arrested this school year on sexual misconduct charges. Police are investigating a fourth for allegations she had sex with a 17-year-old boy. All four educators have resigned, Gwinnett officials said.
One of the accused, Michael Appelbaum, waived a hearing Thursday on charges alleging he had sex with a female student under the age of 16 several times during the 2011-12 school year and fondled the buttocks of another female student under the age of 16 in October 2013. Appelbaum’s attorney, Kevin J. Pratt, strongly denied the allegations.
Under Georgia law, sexual contact between anyone with supervisory or disciplinary authority and a person under his or her care is illegal, even if consensual. Teachers or school administrators who touch the “intimate parts” of a student are guilty of sexual assault, a felony punishable by one year to a quarter century in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.
In most of these cases, records show, school officials learned of the allegations after a parent or student reported it. Georgia law requires teachers and school administrators to report suspicions of inappropriate contact, but experts say that doesn’t happen often enough, for a variety of reasons.
When schools are alerted, they sometimes find little evidence beyond student complaints, leading to inconclusive investigations and little or no disciplinary action. Consider the 2013 case against Appelbaum.
The accuser waited five months after the alleged incident, telling a teacher only after a classroom discussion about teacher sexual harassment. One reason she didn’t immediately come forward was fear of hurting Appelbaum, who, she noted, has a family, according to her statement that is part of the investigative report. “I felt horrible at myself,” she wrote. “I was mad at myself for putting myself in that position and not being able to say something to him right after.”
Appelbaum said he’d only touched her back. The investigation resulted in a letter telling Appelbaum to keep his hands to himself. Gwinnett schools did not report the incident to state authorities, and he was allowed to remain at the school.
After schools investigate and a conclusive finding is made, the system must notify the Professional Standards Commission, which can investigate and strip a teacher of his or her license or enforce other punishment.
But there are times the PSC is not made aware of an investigation.
Police charged James E. Buckland, an instructor at Summerour Middle School, with sexual assault in October 2015, but the state’s PSC had no case file on him. When asked about that, a Gwinnett spokeswoman explained they didn’t file a report because he didn’t have a teaching certificate. He was an instructor in the Junior Leadership Corps, a program like the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in high schools.
Gwinnett has changed its policy, so employees such as Buckland can be investigated by the PSC, but it’s unclear how many such non-certified people are working in Georgia’s other 179 school districts. Also, private schools and charter schools, a growing segment, don’t necessarily have to hire credentialed teachers. The PSC has set up a “clearance certificate” for such employees, but participation by schools is voluntary.
It’s unclear how big a problem inappropriate teacher-student relationships are.
Neither the federal government nor the states keep updated statistics. There have been attempts to cobble together a number based on news reports. A 2004 report published by the U.S. Department of Education published an analysis by Virginia Commonwealth University professor Charol Shakeshaft that estimated that nearly one in 10 students in grades 8 through 11 had experienced sexual misconduct by an educator. If true, then millions of children have been victims.
Shakeshaft lamented the lack of data.
Georgia school districts must run a state or national criminal background check when hiring a teacher, but that’s no help when cases aren’t reported to authorities.
The PSC is trying to address that with participation in a voluntary national reporting system between the states. Teacher’s credentials reflect whether they’ve been disciplined for violations such as inappropriate conduct, with a standard of proof below that of criminal courts.
Glenn Lipson, a California psychologist who often testifies as an expert in court, believes most perpetrators are not predators: they’re flawed, even damaged, adults who get too close to their students because they want to help them or because they’re seeking affirmation. The teacher-student relationship then morphs into something it should not.
Georgia is among the first states to mandate ethics training for students at teacher colleges, he said, with some 20,000 exposed so far. To explain why this is important, ethics expert Troy Hutchings shared his own experience as a former high school English teacher, when a student gave him a love note.
What was he supposed to do with that? He didn’t want to bring it up with the principal or with a colleague, for fear he’d be accused of having encouraged the student. He didn’t want to talk to the student, either, so he threw the note in the trash. Destroying the evidence was the wrong decision, he said. With teachers grounded in ethics training, he said, they would be more comfortable confiding in colleagues in dicey situations.
Shakeshaft also criticized the commitment of school districts to help students who’ve reported abuse, saying a major cultural shift is needed in schools. There should be consistent check-ins for at least a year with an abused student.
“It has not been my experience that school districts are supportive of victims,” she said. “If anything, they treat them with hostility and, or indifference.”
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