In less than a month, three school district employees – one each from Everett, Shoreline and Edmonds – have been investigated for alleged inappropriate contact with students.
On April 2, a case was filed with the Snohomish County Prosecutors Office regarding a 26-year-old Edmonds-Woodway High School softball coach who allegedly made phone calls and sent e-mails “of a sexual nature” to a 15-year-old student, according to police. The coach remains on paid administrative leave while the investigation continues, according to officials.
Three days later, on April 5, former Jackson High School teacher Robert Vincent Beresford, 35, charged with two counts of first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor, was given a 15-month prison term after having sex with one of his students.
That same day, former Shoreline School District employee Edward Alexander McLean, a 25-year-old computer technician who worked at various elementary schools and at the Shoreline Childrens Center, was arraigned and pleaded “not guilty” to five counts of third-degree child rape, one count of child molestation and one count of sexual exploitation of a minor. Police say Shoreline students were the victims. McLean was fired from the district earlier this month.
The screening process for new-hires is similar in each district. According to officials from each district, the process includes:
• Reference checks for past performance evaluations, if their previous employer would rehire the person and if their have been any concerns regarding the applicant,
• Applicants are asked if they have ever committed a crime or had any reason to be fired in the past,
• Fingerprints are sent to State Patrol and FBI officials and a criminal background check is conducted.
“And if any of those are a ‘yes,’” Shoreline School District spokeswoman Marjorie Ledell said, “the application goes into an administrative hold and the candidate is screened out.”
Jane Westergaard-Nimocks, executive director of human resources for the Edmonds School District, said there is a daily consciousness toward student safety.
“The district’s whole mission is to protect students … its something we do 24/7,” Westergaard-Nimocks said. “I’ve been a principal and I’ve worked in the central office in this district, and there was always a screen in my head of ‘is this safe,’ and ‘am I setting up the safest conditions possible for students … its not just waiting for things to happen.’”
If safety is so apparent, how does the process fail?
“Any system has its flaws,” Ledell said. “If somebody beats the system, they probably lied.”
District officials seem to agree that the recent events could not have been prevented through new-hire screening because there were apparently no red flags in the employees’ backgrounds.
“(McLean) was hired at about age 20, and when someone is hired at age 20, there’s a lot shorter work history and history in general than someone hired at age 40,” Ledell said. “If we thought there would be a problem, he would not have been hired.”
And in each situation, the individuals worked for at least several years before allegations of misconduct were made.
Beresford worked at Gateway Middle School and Jackson High School for a collective six years, district officials said, as well as one year teaching in the Edmonds School District.
Across the state, there have been situations where school officials made agreements with employees suspected of misconduct that allow them to step down from their position rather than continue the investigation and be fired. In some cases, reports of the misconduct have been destroyed or sealed.
There is no indication any such deal was involved with the three recent local investigations.
Everett School District human resources director Steve Katz said that while he believes districts have become more “vigilant” in reporting employee misconduct and don’t participate in such deals anymore, “Districts are supposed to report that kind of a thing to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. (But that doesn’t happen) if they just bought out or agreed to resign if the allegation wasn’t pursued.”
Katz said he is happy about several new laws that passed in the 2004 legislative session.
The three bills essentially work in conjunction to stop those kinds of deals and to restrict employees who engage in such actions from continuing to work in schools.
As recently approved by Gov. Gary Locke, the laws make it so school districts can’t offer severance agreements to employees that include the concealment of past complaints or reports of sexual misconduct. The legislation also negates destroying records of such instances and makes it so that districts must share with each other information regarding such reports involving current or past employees. The new bills will go into effect in June.
“Anything that helps the district deal with inappropriate behavior and misconduct is a good thing,” Katz said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
