School districts in four San Francisco Bay Area counties demonstrate a “haphazard compliance with child abuse laws,” according to a survey of 94 of those districts by the Bay Area News Group.
Fewer than half of the districts in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties that responded to the newspapers’ survey said that they offer their employees annual instruction in how to recognize signs of sexual or other physical abuse. In addition, fewer than half reminded their employees of their responsibility to report any suspicion of mistreatment.
The issue of child abuse is not confined to the San Francisco Bay Area. EdSource Today reported that the State Auditor criticized the Los Angeles Unified School District for mishandling years of sex abuse cases involving teachers.
Perhaps more importantly, although California teachers can lose their license to teach because of misconduct against students, the state has no similar process to prevent the other 289,000 school employees who may be fired or forced to resign due to child abuse from seeking similar jobs in other districts, EdSource Today reported.
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