A proposal that aims to protect students from sexual misconduct in schools is moving through the Arizona Legislature.
The measure, known as “Ava’s Law,” would essentially suspend immunity for school districts if a student is the victim of sexual abuse by an employee on whom the district did not complete a proper background check. That would also be the case if a statutory duty to report did not happen.
Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a similar bill in 2024, but its main advocates are hopeful for getting a signature this year. The House Judiciary committee unanimously approved the bill Wednesday; there was no opposition when it cleared the Senate, either.
Charol Shakeshaft, distinguished professor of educational leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of "Organizational Betrayal: How Schools Enable Sexual Misconduct and How to Stop It," joined The Show to discuss how she came to this issue of sexual misconduct happening in schools and people not necessarily knowing about it.
Full conversation
CHAROL SHAKESHAFT: Well, it was decades ago when one of my doctoral students, who was also a full-time principal, came to me and said he thought that one of his teachers was having sex with students, and he wanted to know what he should do about it, and I honestly hadn't really much ever thought about it, and so he and I worked on it and talked about it and said he should call the police because it it was a crime. These were underage students and he did, and the person was arrested.
But it got me thinking, how big a problem is this? This was in the 1980s, and so how big a problem is this? What are schools doing about it? If it's a problem, how does it happen? And because of that, I started doing a series of studies. And I have spent, you know, the last four decades, along with other work I do, studying school employees' sexual misconduct.
MARK BRODIE: Well, over those years, how prevalent have you found this to be?
SHAKESHAFT: Well, the most recent and reliable estimates are about 17% of students report that sometime in their K-12 career they have been targeted by a school employee and have had a sexual interaction with the school employee. So I think that's about 9 million students at any one time.
BRODIE: That seems like an awfully high number.
SHAKESHAFT: It is. When I first started, we did some studies and it was about 9%, so it seems to be increasing rather than decreasing.
BRODIE: Any sense as to why that might be?
SHAKESHAFT: Well, it could be an artifact of the research because different methods have been used to ask these questions. It may depend upon the sample and how representative it is. Before that, it was about 10%, of the most reliable, and that was data collected by the Department of Education, which I consider to be pretty reliable, so I would say between 10% and 17%.
BRODIE: Are there any particular demographic groups that are particularly at risk here?
SHAKESHAFT: Well, the kids who are at risk are vulnerable kids. So if the demographic that vulnerable kids or kids who are more likely to be discriminated against or not believed is racial, then it might be that. Certainly kids with special needs are more likely to be targeted than kids who don't present with special needs. Females are more likely to be targeted than males, but really just about every kind of kid can be targeted.
BRODIE: I would imagine that within the school, you mentioned a student of yours who is also a principal, had a suspicion that there was something untoward going on. I would think that there must be some amount of hesitation on the part of teachers or other school employees to turn someone else in. I mean, that's a really big accusation, and if you're wrong, that seems like it would be a really big problem.
SHAKESHAFT: Well, that's what teachers say. “If I'm wrong, it's a big problem.” But if they're right and they don't report, it's a bigger problem because it's the student who is being abused who isn't being protected. And it is one of the issues in almost every case I've studied, and I've studied 300 cases from all around.
And in every case kids knew and adults wouldn't say they knew, but they would say things like I was very suspicious or I thought it odd or this isn't the way most people usually behave. So the adults had their concerns about the behavior of a colleague, and yet they didn't report and when asked about that, they would say just what you said. ‘Well, if I'm wrong, I could really ruin someone's career.” But what they don't say is, “but if I'm right and I don't report, I could really ruin a kid's life.”
Now I would also argue that they don't, they won't ruin a person's career if, if they make an accusation that isn't accurate because when they report, first of all, they're not saying they know, they're saying this is something that needs to be investigated. That's it.
BRODIE: Well, so then in terms of trying to get more people who suspect there are bad things happening to report them, is that a policy change? Is it more of a culture change in schools, do you think?
SHAKESHAFT: I think it's a culture change. First of all, it's a training change. We need training, and we need training not just about what would consist of a boundary crossing, but the training needs to focus on the bystanders. So I think it's, I think it's more of a culture change than anything else.
BRODIE: Have you seen any evidence to suggest that that culture shift is happening in schools?
SHAKESHAFT: I’ve seen a little bit, but not a lot, no.
BRODIE: So understanding as you say that it's maybe more of a culture change than a policy change. I do want to ask you about a proposal moving through the state Legislature here in Arizona that would seemingly incentivize schools and school districts to do more robust background checks on employees. In the world of policy proposed changes, is that the kind of thing that you think could make a difference?
SHAKESHAFT: That is something that could make a difference, and I want to be even more specific in terms of talking about background checks. Very often when we use the term background checks, it's short for criminal background checks. So in nearly every school they'll run a criminal background check, you know, has the person been convicted of a crime? Well, that gets at some people, but very few of those people actually apply for jobs in schools or actually apply for teacher positions. They may apply for jobs in schools.
So a background check needs to understand something a little broader than just the criminal background check, but nevertheless they're important and they do identify people who've been convicted of a crime. But very often the person isn't convicted of a crime. So when we talk about background checks, we need to think of them as both criminal background checks and reference background checks.
And by that I mean I've studied how teachers and others are hired, and very often they don't really do a very useful reference background check. They don't necessarily call a person up who was the direct supervisor. They don't ask, why did this person leave this job? They don't ask were there ever any complaints or allegations of misconduct towards students, those questions are rarely asked, and those are the questions that in a reference or a background check would get to. Yes, the person left because we didn't like how they interacted with students.
