At Middleboro's Candidates' Night on Thursday, March 20, Neil Rosenthal asked the candidates for School Committee about the incident of child abuse that has been widely reported in the media and labelled the school's handling 'INSTITUTIONAL INERTIA.'
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For those members of the Middleboro community with ComCast, a viewing of that exchange is a necessity because of the clear revelations of a callous and inept committee.
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For those members of the Middleboro community with Verizon, maybe you can have a friend with ComCast tape the event for you to view. You need to watch it!
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The School Committee and the Superintendent have danced around carefully worded phrases, nonsense about legalities and protecting the rights of the victim and perpetrators, and an insistence they 'followed protocol.'
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Incumbent School Committee member, Joseph Masi, Jr. told a member of the audience that if he thought it was easy, he should take out nomination papers and run for School Committee.
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Is that what an outraged community wants to hear? Think about his comments when you cast your ballot on Saturday, April 5.
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A child was sent home to be abused and tortured.
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The community wants assurances that action will be taken to assure that an incident such as this WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN and YOU will put into place ALL necessary protections to provide that assurance.
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The community doesn't need to know the details, legalities or protocol. And frankly, the community doesn't care.
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Dr. Sullivan, YOU failed. Accept some culpability and do what needs to be done. The community deserves more than arrogant assurances that YOU followed protocol.
.School Superintendent Robert M. Sullivan defended the actions of his department.
School staff members followed normal procedures by notifying the Department of Social Services of the possible abuse, Sullivan said. Enterprise
School staff members followed normal procedures by notifying the Department of Social Services of the possible abuse, Sullivan said. Enterprise
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2 comments:
To the School Committee:
The assured safety of our children is the single most important topic we must consider. I want to know that when school personnel become aware of a case of child abuse that the police as well as DSS are automatically notified. It took the Middleboro police less than an hour to arrest the perp once they became aware of the situation, bringing an immediate end to months of suffering by that poor child. Protocol be damned. Common sense and humanitarianism should have prevailed, and must prevail in the future. Protecting the system can't be more important than the children the system serves.
An outraged community is expecting you to take steps to insure that police involvement will be mandated in cases of observed extreme cruelty to children. No excuses are acceptable.
Both DSS and the Middleboro School Dept. failed a child, leaving him at serious risk as a result of poor follow through and unclear policies. Many I have spoken with in the community are very upset that the indefensible is being defended. We expect swift action to make a clear policy on how any child reporting and displaying injuries caused by abuse will be protected in the future. This needs to be addressed ASAP.
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