Betrayal - Educator Sexual Misconduct — Bonus | Jenifer's Story

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

While researching the series, the Betrayal team learned about the prevalence of Educator Sexual Misconduct. Dr. Charol Shakeshaft, an expert and researcher, explains why problems persist and what schools can do about it. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at [e-mail].  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, it's Joel and Matt from How to Money. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high. And the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right.

Yeah, each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on. And the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to How to Money on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom podcast. Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Poulter to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name.

Part of the way through the Valley of Despair is realizing this has happened, and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward. Our two-part conversation is available now. Listen to the mailroom on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. I'm John Polk. For years, I was the poster boy of the conversion therapy movement, the ex-gay who married an ex-lesbian, and traveled the world telling my story of how I changed my sexuality from gay to straight. You might have heard my story, but you've never heard the real story.

John has never been anything that gay. but he really tried hard not to be. Listen to Atonement, the John Polk story on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is betrayal. Bonus Episode 2, Educator Sexual Misconduct. We've addressed betrayal in various ways during the series, and we've heard from many of you that personally identified with Rachel. The victim that Spencer Heron was convicted of sexually assaulting at Kelle High School. During our production, we've learned more about how pervasive educator sexual misconduct is.

Sexual misconduct is a range of verbal, visual, and auditory and physical behaviors that are sexualized interactions with students in schools. Anything from language to students that is sexualized, asking them. what they like to do for sex, what kind of sex do they like, two things that are visual, for instance, masturbating in front of students, never touching them, but masturbating in front of them, or disrobing in front of them, or sending them pictures of penises or breasts or vaginas.

And then physical assault issues like forced sex, or in terms of minors, it may not be forced sex. They're minors, they may be confused, they're often told the person loves them and cares for them and they're going to get married and things are going to be okay. That's Dr. Cheryl Shakeshap. She's a professor of educational leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of a congressionally mandated report on educator sexual misconduct.

She's been studying school employee's sexual misconduct for more than 25 years. Our team reached out to her to learn more about the problem. Dr. Shakeshap believes schools have not done nearly enough to prevent educator sexual misconduct, and that the onus is often on the children to report. We have received so many emails with similar stories to Rachel's. We felt it was important to raise awareness to help students, parents, and schools be aware to avoid predators like Spencer. We have expected the children to be the people who police the school and prevent things from happening. So we give them training about good touch, bad touch. Nothing wrong with that. They should

know those things. Absolutely. But adults also need to know exactly what they should do when they see things, when things are going on, when they're bystanders and stuff happens in front of them, they need training to be able to understand what that means. You know, not just say, oh, he's just a friendly teacher. He hugs all the kids. Or she just really likes her students and yes, she goes out of her way for them. You know, they need to understand what the boundaries. are, that nobody gets to cross those boundaries, and that if you see boundary crossing, you report it. And then the people who gets reported to need to understand that if there's a report, you need

to actually do something. You need to, in most cases, call the police and have an investigation. And sometimes even well-meaning teachers don't understand the dynamics of teachers who engage in sexual misconduct. We heard from a teacher who joined the staff at Kell High School after Spencer Heron was arrested, and one of his comments really stood out. He wrote, Many teachers at Kell would tell me they didn't really believe the charges,

or that every story has two sides. And it really made me feel uncomfortable because of the deplorable charges. I found it odd that so many employees were complacent or passive about the story. In schools, they often allow teachers to break rules. taking students in their cars, being alone with students behind closed and locked doors in their rooms. Teachers see things of their colleagues and they don't respond. I asked teachers, did you see anything? And they say, yes, I did. It was, you know, really irregular and not allowed behavior.

And then I say to the teacher, well, did you report it? And the teacher will say, well, no. And then I ask why. And the teacher says, well, you know, if I was wrong, I might get a colleague in trouble. and I didn't want to do that, and it's kind of awkward, you know, we're friendly, and I just, it just, I just didn't report. I've never heard a teacher say, yes, I reported, and I reported because even if I'm wrong, I wanted to make sure that if something was happening, somebody was looking into it. So the issue is that in schools, we don't do anything, and by not doing anything, by not using prevention methods,

we enable those people who either intend to abuse or come around to abusing because they start crossing boundary after boundary after boundary and pretty soon there they are. We enable them. It's like having roads with no stop signs. Perhaps teachers don't know what they should say. We need to practice the language of reporting. Just get people familiar with it.

Instead of saying, I don't think this is really. real. I mean, I'm probably making something out of nothing. I mean, it's just, well, you know, I really hate to bring this up. Say, Harold has his classroom across the hall from me, and I see him there regularly alone with individual students. It concerns me. Or I saw Janine having dinner with one of her students, and they were sitting really close together. I'm concerned. We need to teach people to just give information. And then it's up to somebody to take the next step and investigate. We asked Dr. Shakechap, how can we change that thinking and culture in schools?

Every school should have training, training about patterns and what happens and what you're supposed to do as an adult. Every school should have a set of behaviors so that people understand what's acceptable and what's not acceptable between adults and students. Many kids just think that it's okay. They say, if this weren't okay, somebody would have stopped it. Everybody sees how he acts or how she acts. So kids don't really understand.

And they think of it as dating. They don't understand the issues. So the kids see it. Kids talk about it. They see it. They know stuff's going on. But they don't report it because they don't code it as something that is supposed to be reported because no one's ever taught them. New year, new goals.

And in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt. And I'm Joel. We are from the How to Money podcast, and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to How to Money on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanko Wally. And I'm Hurricane DeVolu.

It's a new year. And on the podcast's health stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health. which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight. You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that. We break down the topics you want to know more about.

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It means honoring what you've survived and choosing how you want to grow. It means giving ourselves permission. to feel what we've been holding and knowing that it's okay to ask for help. I'm Mike Dalarocha, host of Sacred Lessons. This podcast is a space for men to talk openly about mental health, grief, relationships, and the patterns we inherit, but don't have to repeat. Here, we slow down, we listen, we learn how vulnerability becomes strength and how healing happens in community, not in isolation.

If you're ready to let go of what no longer serves you and step into the year with clarity, compassion, and purpose, sacred lessons is your companion on your healing journey. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Delo Rocha on America's number one podcast network, IHeart. Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike Delo Rocha and start listening on the free IHeart Radio app today. Dr. Shake-Shaf explains that there is training for sexual harassment, but schools could do more. When you ask most schools if they have training, they say, yes, we have training.

Then when you ask to see the training, what you see is either training about sexual harassment peer to peer. So the adults get training about not harassing one of their colleagues. Kids get training about not harassing one of their peers, but neither get training about the adult sexually harassing the student. Or they get trained on mandated reporting, but mandated reporting training, is about reporting things that happen outside the school, not inside the school. What else could schools do? We need people who walk through the cafeteria at lunchtime and look at what adults and students are doing. People who, when they walk down the halls, are looking at adult and student interaction.

When they go by a classroom door, are looking in and seeing what's going on, when it's before school and after school and the classroom's empty, checking the classroom, seeing what's happened. We need people who are on the move and looking for the right things. It isn't that people don't walk down the halls, but they aren't looking at adult-to-student interactions. They're looking for some student who's misbehavior. They're not looking for these things, so we need supervisory behavior. When you hear a rumor, even if it's abstract, we need people who will investigate. And on the occasions, someone does report it, the investigation often doesn't go far enough.

They tend to call the teacher in and say, are you having sex with Anne-Marie? And the teacher says no. And the person says, okay, thank you. I didn't think so. And then the teacher steps out and texts Anne-Marie and says, erase everything off your phone. And if you get called in, tell them nothing's going on. And that's the end of it. They don't follow up in supervision.

They don't follow up in trying to see what's happening. They don't do an investigation. They don't ask the friends. They don't do anything. One of our listeners shared a story that still upsets her years later. She tried to do the right thing. She wrote, I was a sophomore in high school,

and one of my teachers used to hit on me and tell me very inappropriate things, for instance, how he would rather have me beside him in his bed instead of his wife. Nothing physical ever happened. It was all verbal and the mental toll it had on me was so much more than my teenage mind could take. He would follow me in the hallways. I couldn't take it anymore and broke down in tears to my mother and told her everything.

We went to the school and told the principal everything. He seemed skeptical. I was brought in the next day for questioning. Needless to say, nothing happened, and he was slapped with a week off. When he came back, it was worse because now he demanded to know why I said anything. So what should happen? call the police and have an investigation. That's what you need to do. And what else does Dr. Shake Shaft feel is non-negotiable?

No sharing phone numbers. No sharing social media. No having friends on Facebook. No TikTok, no Instagram, no nothing. School districts are supposed to have email that are monitored. They can have texting systems that are monitored so that you're using the monitored texting systems for the school. There are lots of ways to do electronic communication with students when you need to that are monitored by schools and are therefore safe. Now that doesn't mean somebody might not also use their telephone, but we should at least start with the rule that,

no, you can't use your personal telephone number, you can't use your personal telephone number for texting, or your personal email, or your personal social media. social media. School districts have Facebook social media pages. They have other things where if you want to make an announcement to your students, you want to do whatever you can do it there. And we can't just say this one time at the beginning of the school year. It needs to be messaged over and over again. It is a simple rule and it should be followed and it should be followed with big signs up all over the place and little pop-ups that come up and other things to remind people, don't give out your telephone number,

an adult in the school. Don't give out your telephone number to a student in school. Don't text. We need to change the patterns. Dr. Shakechev understands how much we put on our teachers. I was a teacher and I thought this job's the hardest job I've ever had. It was wonderful, but it was hard work. And so I don't want to slam the teachers for that. Yeah, they're busy. But it is a school culture problem. If you have a school culture that's the culture of student Safety is first, and these are the things we do, and we talk about it, and we share our strategies, and we bring it up, and we don't bury it, and we don't just say, hey, we've got a handbook and policies, read them, and then tell people, that's training, which it's not.

You know, we can change a culture where we say we don't cross kids' boundaries. That's behavior that's not acceptable here. The betrayal team thanks Dr. Shakespeare for her insight into educator sexual misconduct. There are new developments in Jennifer's story, and we'll share them with you in an additional bonus episode soon. Hey, it's Joel and Matt from How To Money. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices that are still high and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress.

That's right. Each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to How to Money on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom podcast. Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken? But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist, Dr. Steve Poulter, to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name.

Part of the way through the Valley of Despair is realizing this has happened. and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward. Our two-part conversation is available now. Listen to the mailroom on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. I'm John Polk. For years, I was the poster boy of the conversion therapy movement, the ex-gay who married an ex-lesbian and traveled the world telling my story of how I changed my sexuality from gay to straight. You might have heard my story, but you've never heard the world.

real story. John has never been anything but gay, but he really tried hard not to be. Listen to Atonement, the John Polk story on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.