1370- Boys Sexually Assault Girl

I don't want this posting to sound the wrong way, because I certainly would want anyone who sexally assaulted someone to be punished, but I wonder how much of this involved children lying, and adults blowing things out of proportion. This article didn't go into any detail, and said the girl wasn't physically harmed, although I know she could have been emotionally harmed. I certainly wasn't there, but I do wonder what the boys did, and what the girl did, as well. The kids I taught were 7-9. About 4 years ago we had a girl who was very "ready," so to speak, and she decided to initiate a little game of "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours." with some boys inside of a large concrete tunnel that we had on our playground. All kids are curious about the anatomy of the opposite sex,and if a free show is offered many will watch. We noticed a crowd of kids gathered at the tunnel, went down and broke the situation up, and sent the kids to the guidance office to discuss what happened. At first the girl denied what she had done, and tried to say that the boys forced her to undress. Finally, she admitted to initiating the situation. Their parents were called and the situation was discussed, and taken care of with each of them. THe school chose to take the tunnel off of the playground. All of this happened without lawsuits or anyone being fired. As far as the teacher's being accused of not watching the kids well, often 2 or 3 teachers are responsible for watching over 100 children. THis is not the teacher's fault, it is a matter of being understaffed. At my last school I was only on duty with one other teacher. We were so careful with watching them, but still your eyes can't be everywhere right when something starts, especailly if the playground is spread out, and has blindspots. It is not unusual to be alerted to a problem by a student. I would feel better about the firing of the teacher if the story had been more specific. It just goes to prove that working with children sucks!

I'm sure the'res more to the story...

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lab mom