Parents showed up angry at last night’s school board meeting in Longview.
Those parents know that schools and people who work there failed their children.
School officials learned months ago of alleged rapes of some students BY others and, by all accounts, they covered it up.
Police share some of the blame because, when they heard of possible crimes, they simply accepted the school officials' decision to handle it internally.
Now, the Longview district has parked five school employees on paid leave.
Superintendent Karen Cloninger, arrested a week ago, now faces multiple criminal charges, including witness tampering and obstruction.
What makes this worse, I see schools all over the Northwest violate the mandatory reporting law regularly … deciding THEY will handle criminal matters to avoid embarrassing information getting out to the public.
If the school board knew, they should all resign.
In the meantime, I would suggest parents push every school board in the region to make a firm promise to citizens. If any kind of abuse of any child is even suspected, it will always be reported to the police as the law requires.
If your home district won’t make that commitment, you’re free to conclude they’ll cover up the rape of YOUR child.
