Posted on Thursday, January 30th, 2014 at 5:53 pm
According to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and an article published by NBC News on January 30, the number of children who are abused in schools by teachers, administrators, and other school employees may actually be much greater than statistics show. The GAO states that this is likely due to improper reporting of alleged or suspected abuse, in addition to a confusing reporting system that typically involves the school, law enforcement agencies, and other state agencies.
Some of the main issues that the report raised included people not knowing who to report suspected abuse to and schools not knowing what agencies or other parties to report the abuse to. According to Rep. George Miller, who requested the report be done, a major part of this problem lies in states that report abuse from agency to agency rather than to law enforcement agencies.
Included in the GAO’s report was a mention of a sexual abuse case from 2008 in which one teacher was reported for sexual abuse, but allowed to work at several schools before being investigated and charged. Through NBC News’ investigations, it was discovered that the case was one in which attorney Tom Bruno of the Bruno Law Offices represented three families of girls who had been abused against the school districts.
To read more about the report, read NBC News’ story here.