Teacher sex charges beg for accountability and education

After the Shore Regional High School Board of Education fired a male teacher accused of having an affair with a female student and adjourned its meeting,

an upset and obviously

perplexed woman walked up

to the district’s Superintendent/Principal Leonard G. Schnappauf to ask a question.

“How can something like this go on and on, and nobody knows?” she demanded. “Are people turning their backs?

It’s a question on the lips of many since the charges against the teacher allege that a sexual relationship between the two had existed for four years, beginning when she was 14 and continuing to the present.

The now-18-year-old girl graduated from Shore Regional in June.

Did no other teacher or student or administrator see or suspect anything?

If they did, why didn’t they step forward to break it up and protect the girl?

The incident at Shore Regional and another sex scandal involving a Monmouth Regional High School teacher accused of sexually assaulting a 2-year-old child, which broke days earlier, beg for a re-examination by the education community of how a teacher’s character is assessed.

The action by the Monmouth Regional teacher, who is charged with engaging in child pornography distributed in an e-mail, was more clandestine in that it is alleged to have taken place in Ocean County, far from the high school.

But, once again, the question begs: Did anyone at the school have suspicions?

Character education is a staple in today’s classroom. It would appear that it should be given greater emphasis in policy manuals on teacher behavior.

The vast majority of teachers in the schools are upstanding citizens whose character cannot be impugned. But the rotten apples must be found out.

There is a need for more accountability — on the part of school administrators and members of boards of education. Both should be getting out and about in their schools, and listening, really listening, to what people are saying.

If they make themselves readily available, perhaps someone will tell them something — perhaps an ugly truth that needs to be ripped out by the roots.

Maybe then, others like the angry woman who buttonholed Schnappauf after the board’s meeting and vote won’t have to ask: “How could nobody know?”