Deaf school working to protect kids from abuse

Associated Press

VANCOUVER — The state-run Washington School for the Deaf has made progress toward better protecting students from sexual abuse, but must do more to comply with nine safety-related reforms ordered by Gov. Gary Locke last year, a panel says.

Superintendent Len Aron still needs to improve staff training and dormitory supervision, according to a report released by the watchdog panel on Monday. Aron, superintendent at the school since 1998, also must train his staff on how to handle disturbed children.

"They are making great strides and progress," said Clark County Superior Court Judge Diane Woolard, the head of the panel. "You can’t get everything done at once."

Locke has asked the panel to review the school again in six months.

Hiring six additional dormitory workers at the 113-student residential school will require more money, Woolard said. Locke’s supplemental budget request would boost the school’s $6.5 million budget by $235,000 to pay for additional staff members and for training.

Records show more than 100 sex-related incidents — including rape, molestation and harassment — have been reported at the school in the past three years.

The panel’s 23-page report said the school relies too much on in-house staff rather than consulting with outside experts to solve problems with sexual abuse, especially when dealing with potentially dangerous students.

"The governor made it clear to Len that he wants him to rely more on third-party consultants," said Pearse Edwards, the governor’s spokesman.

Locke is confident the superintendent will meet the specifications, Edwards said.

The panel’s report says the school has finished four of the reforms, including improving internal communication between teachers and dorm staff, and better documenting sexual assaults and other incidents on campus.

Three other reforms are close to being complete — providing abuse-awareness training for students, developing an admissions policy that allows the school to deny admission to predatory students, and establishing an expulsion policy.

Students have been informally screened using a risk-assessment tool to determine who could present a danger to other children or be vulnerable to abuse. Several students were denied admission this school year.

An independent review by the state Office of the Ombudsman for Families and Children found that 11 students with severe behavioral and mental health problems were responsible for nearly two-thirds of 121 sexual abuse incidents at the school.

The ombudsman’s report tracked allegations of student-on-student sexual misconduct from the fall of 1995 through last spring, and concluded that poor record-keeping kept sexually aggressive children in the mainstream program, making other students vulnerable.

The independent review also criticized the Department of Social and Health Services for failing to make sure the school’s superintendent followed recommendations from investigators and for finding the school was not at fault when evidence suggested otherwise.

The report also concludes that school administrators felt compelled to admit all eligible students, even though they lacked the resources to deal with severe behavior disorders, including sexual aggression.

The report recommends that the state establish a treatment center for troubled deaf youths separate from the Vancouver school’s campus.

"They are not equipped to be a residential treatment center," said panel member Lucy Berliner, director of the Harborview Center for Sexual Assault in Seattle. "The state has to figure out what can be done for troubled deaf youth."