The recent storm of controversy over the sexual abuse of former Moraga School District students made for an, at times, emotional meeting of the district's Governing Board, Tuesday.
Visceral comments punctuated the opening of the Board's first meeting since media reports revealed that past district staff members illegally failed to report instances of abuse.
In response to the District's failures, board members voted 4-0, with Board Member Dennis Kelleher absent, to establish a Board Committee for Student Safety charged with "reviewing the District's current policies, practices and training regarding child abuse and mandated reporting..." The committee is scheduled to present findings and recommendations to the Board on August 21, for potential adoption before the start of the new school year.
The committee will be made up of one board member, the superintendent, a representative from the Contra Costa County Child Abuse Prevention Council or Contra Costa County Department of Children and Family Services, a certificated and classified representative from each school, as well as a parent and administrator from each school.
Public speakers responding to the proposed committee insisted that an independent investigation be conducted into the previous failures to report the instances of abuse. An investigative element was not included in the meeting's agenda analysis of the committee's establishment. District Superintendent Bruce Burns did not directly respond to calls for an independent investigation, however, he indicated that the committee would, in fact, be asked to look back as part of its review of policies and procedures.
A committee on student safety when everyone just wants to know what happened, who knew, and why Walters got invited back. I do appreciate the forward thinking of the board to protect future and current students but I think that it was just a short sighted smoke screen to get people to go away.
"Your posts suggest close, even firsthand knowledge of some of the aspects of this latest case, but who's to say for sure?" My posts suggest lots of things: Cover ups, felonious inaction, cronyism, and horrible judgement displayed by teachers. Most everything I have said (aside from personal opinions) are public records or have been written in the paper for all to read. To suggest to your readers that I know more than they do is quite interesting to me. I'm curious, did you extend this special invitation to others on this message board that also seem to have a close connection to this case, positive or negative? This is a small community so obviously many will have a close connection to the past and the present, why not invite all to share their real names. You seem to have zero'd in on me for some reason, care to elaborate on the lack of invitations to others? I have not threatened harm to anyone and only a few of my more choice posts have been flagged down, again what makes me so special? Should I post things to you like this? "2nd Generation Moraga 4:48 pm on Thursday, March 15, 2012 I said it once - I'll say it again - WHO LOVES YOU JD! "
While I'm sure some would say there was an abundance of "misused emotion" at last night's meeting, I for one welcome the response of the school board and think the new committee and other measures at least deserve to be given a chance. One very valid point that was made was that no matter how much one may favor full transparency (and I do), the school board is very limited in sharing with the public information involving personnel matters. Kudos too to Sean of Patch for fantastic reporting.
Its unfortunate that a group of people in this town believe that no matter what the current SB or Superintendent does, they are wrong.
http://www.moraga.k12.ca.us/