A Southern High School freshman, 15, was sexually assaulted by a male student in the school cafeteria while inattentive school aides were a mere feet away. Then, after the girl gathered up her courage to report the molestation and return to campus, another school aide taunted her in front of a group of male students, identifying her as the sexual assault victim, and openly mocking her, suggesting to the boys to keep their distance from her.
The Guam Department of Education’s managers will not comment about the crime and the ensuing retaliation by staff against the victim aside from explaining that an investigation is ongoing.
Kandit has reviewed a report made by the girl’s mother to senators about the events. We also spoke with the girl’s mother. We will neither identify the victim nor the mother in order to protect the victim from further victimization.
According to the girl’s mother:
The crime happened on April 24, during the school’s sixth period. The girl and her classmates have attended their sixth period in the cafeteria since the start of the school year because their class has lacked a certified classroom teacher.
Two school aides were present, but were “inattentive and distracted.” A male SHS student skipped class during that time and entered the cafeteria without the two school aides noticing.
“According to my daughter, the school aides ‘pay more attention to their phones, than the students,'” she said.
“The male student sat next to her and inappropriately touched my daughter several times, despite her moving his hand from her each time, he then lifted her shirt and attempted to stick his hand down the front of her pants,” the girl’s mother wrote in her report. “My daughter grabbed his hand to stop him from entering the waistband of her pants.”
Another student, who felt something was wrong, recorded the incident on video.
The male student again skipped class on May 2 during the school’s sixth period and attempted to sit next to the victim. “But my daughter quickly got up and left to stand behind some friends to get away from him,” the victim’s mother said. “I must stress that my daughter does not know this male student. And only learned his name after the incident while talking with friends about what happened. I must also stress that the cafeteria is a common place for students skipping class to hang out.”
The girl initially was ashamed to tell her family or the authorities what happened. She thought that telling her mother would burden her mother and draw unwanted attention to her. On May 6, she decided to break her silence and she told her 17-year-old brother, also an SHS student, what happened.
The boy took his sister out of class and brought her to the school resource officer and to an SHS administrator. The administrator called their mother, and she arrived at the school while Guam Police Department officers were starting their investigation.
The assailant has not been allowed to return to campus. He may be expelled, pending due process.
The victim went back to school this past Monday, May 12.
Female School Aide Taunted, Mocked Victim
According to the victim’s mother, when the victim walked into the cafeteria on her first day back to school (this past Monday), a female school aide looked at her then told a group of students, “Oh boys, you better not get too close, someone may be recording.”
The incident not only wounded and humiliated the girl further, but it also exposed and identified her as the victim of the sexual assault, her mother said.
“The department does not condone the victimization of anyone experiencing trauma and will hold its employees fully accountable to this expectation,” Guam Department of Education assistant superintendent Christopher Anderson said, when asked whether school aides are trained to protect the identity of sexual assault victims so as not to further victimize them with added grief and embarrassment. “Whether functioning as a teacher or any other GDOE employee, student confidentiality must be adhered to at all times.”
Mother May Sue GDOE
Mr. Anderson also explained that school aides receive school-level training in a number of issues.
“They are versatile and receive training to perform a variety of paraprofessional work supporting teachers and students,” he said. “They can work with individual students or small groups to reinforce learning, provide special services for students with special needs, and monitor student behavior.”
The girl’s mother is not convinced. “There’s no accountability from what GDOE says is happening, and what teachers and school aides are actually doing,” she said.
And to force GDOE to take responsibility and improve its accountability for its duties under the law, she may be filing a lawsuit against the agency, she said.
If she does, she will be making use of a statute the late Robert Klitzkie authored when he was a senator that says, among other things, that students have the right under the law to have a certified classroom teacher in all their classes. That same law allows students and their parents and guardians to sue GDOE for failing to adhere to the students’ rights.
“The GDOE is focused daily on ensuring that all facets of the Adequate Education Act are in full compliance,” Mr Anderson said, explaining further:”With that said, resources available each school day are situationally dependent. For example, when certified teachers or staff in general are on leave, school administrators adjust available personnel to maximize operations. Assigned substitute teachers or teachers on prep are the first line but may not be sufficient to cover all needed classes. When necessary, school administrators will typically assign school aides to deliver emergency lesson plans and supervise in a single classroom, if it doesn’t negatively impact supervision in the hallways, playgrounds, etc.. If campus supervision is a challenge, it may warrant combining classes in a large area like the cafeteria where school aides continue to implement emergency lesson plans but supervise multiple classes in a given period. There are teachers who may be on a long leave of absence that has a School Aide covering over a period of time. This is not the ideal but may be the best course of action until a fully certified teacher is placed.”
“School Aides are the backbone on every school campus,” he said.
On April 24, then again on May 2, and again on May 12, at Southern High School – despite Mr. Anderson’s assertion – school aides were there, but they failed to protect a girl in need twice before turning on her and revictimizing her.
The agency, according to deputy superintendent Barbara Adamos, will not be commenting further on the events.
Vince Borja, the senator with legislative oversight of the GDOE, has demanded GDOE superintendent Erik Swanson provide him a report of his findings on the events by May 15.
