Faces of Evil – Teachers Protect Pedophiles; Should They Do Jail Time?

Did you hug your child today before you sent him or her off to school and worry if your child is going to be harmed while in the safe secure walls of the school? This is not to alarm as much as it is to alert parents, family members and those who care that within those very walls where children are learning is a strangling darkness made up of pedophile teachers that mask their behavior and prey on the innocent.

Just recently a teacher in Rochester, New York was sentenced to four years in prison for sexually molesting an 8-year-old boy who was a student at the upstate New York state school. What came next shocked the minds of parents and leaders in the community. 22 teachers, instead of denouncing the actions of the former teacher, Matthew LoMaglio now a convicted pedophile, wrote letters to the judge in defense of him.

This conduct lowered the bar on indefensible behavior by teachers who are entrusted with the welfare and safety of the community’s young people. It is commonly referred to as circling the wagon in defending “one of their own.” What are parents, or anyone, to think or to wonder in any school in America if the very teachers who are the role models for many students actually support and defend the person who preys on the students that they teach?

Unfortunately this is a symptom of a much larger, much more grave problem in the nation. It is a behavior pattern that is all too familiar to those victims of sexual abuse either in the school or the home, when those who exercise power and authority in their lives are given a pass while the innocent victims suffer.

The reality is clear and it is undeniable. Those who protect the pedophile are themselves the equal faces of evil. They are the very lynch-pin which allows the depravity of the perpetrator to continue to menace and prey upon children. They look the other way and even will admonish the young children who come to them with their stories of horror.

The worst was yet to come in the Rochester, New York School’s community, because many of the parents of children who attended the school implored the judge to release the names of the 22 teachers that wrote letters of support to the judge on behalf of the depraved former gym teacher. The judge denied their request.

Many of the people in the city felt betrayed by the judge’s dismissal of their request as was the city’s mayor. The city’s Mayor was clearly disturbed by the judge’s action and “Mayor Lovely Warren told Fox News, ‘That you would have teachers defend this man, some with letters on school stationery. I find that to be a problem.’”

This is more than a problem, because it sends the message to the community and especially to parents that evil can be practiced right in the very place where their child is guaranteed safety. Teachers may close ranks around one of their own who is engaged in sexual molestation. So, in effect, are their own children also possible victims and who will protect them?

Currently parents and community supporters are circulating a petition to rally support against the 22 teachers as well as the judge on the case. Community resident and parent Karen Bryant who launched the petition told Fox News,”It’s upsetting, but more than that, it’s fearful. They [teachers] are anonymous and they are with our children for hours a day, five days a week. That is downright scary.”

Downright scary is only the half of it. Can you feel safe in your heart while acknowledging that any teacher in your child’s school might be masking behavior that puts your child in danger? Worse yet, can you be sure that the teachers or the school administration will not put on their mask or face of evil and not reveal the molester and in effect cause irreparable harm to your child?

One solution is to have every state in America enact legislation that makes it criminal to not reveal the conduct of another school teacher or employee at the school that is harmful to a student. In effect when the molesting teacher is convicted of molestation the silent teachers’ who knew of the conduct and failed to report it will be sentenced to do time right alongside the evil perpetrator.

Image: Courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kjcs/8039318200/