Abuse allegations send shockwaves

When accusations fly and fingers are pointed in schools about sexual misconduct by educators, it affects not only the victims and accused but the school community as a whole.

Teachers are prompted to re-evaluate their own relationships with students while community members can feel betrayed by someone they thought they could trust with their children.

"When things like this happen it's devastating — not only for the victims who have been involved but the entire community," said Kirk Sitterud, Emery School District superintendent. "They feel violated because of the enormous level of trust that they place in teachers and in our school system."

He said the incidents of sexual misconduct in schools tend, at times, to polarize the community — pitting those who don't believe the accusations against those who feel betrayed.

"It affects everybody, and it becomes a black eye for educators," said Mike Johnsen, superintendent for Tooele School District

The news of a teacher's alleged sexual improprieties does make waves through a community, for obvious reasons, said Pat Rusk, president of the 18,000-member Utah Education Association teachers union.

"You think, 'It can't be a teacher who would do this.' "

School leaders say when a teacher is accused it makes everyone take a step back — especially teachers.

"When they hear a fellow colleague has been accused they are devastated, and it's a distraction from teaching kids how to read and do math," said Logan Superintendent Richard Jensen.

Johnsen said accusations prompt many teachers to become more circumspect on how they interact with students.

"They start thinking, 'Do you dare touch a student on the shoulder, pat them on the back?' " he said. "It's those kind of natural, human relation things."

Some of that hesitation and re-evaluation is good, but some educators feel it can go too far, interfering with healthy student-teacher relationships.

"The day they tell me I can't hug them (my students), I'll quit," Rusk said. "As an elementary teacher, my kids know that when they need a hug, there's one there for them. . . . (But) were I a teacher in a junior high or high school, I would not be hugging the kids."

Jensen agrees the fear of allegations can impose stiff constraints on teacher-student relationships, with some districts going so far as adopt a "better safe than sorry" policy of banning all physical contact.

"Educators, administrators and superintendents are, by their nature, touchy, caring, loving adults," Jensen said. "In this day and age, with laws designed and the environment the way it is, we're unable to pat the student on the back for doing a good job, to hug someone who struggled through high school and finally walks across the stage and receives a diploma, to grab a third-grader on the arm and say 'great job' — we can't do that anymore."

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E-mail: terickson@desnews.com