In January, West Chester Area School District ballyhooed the maintaining of their bond rating.  But as I have said before, if you are an issuer of debt and rated by issuer paid ratings agencies, in a sense you get what you pay for.  Wonder what today’s news will do to their rating/reputation?

Yes, I make no bones about being skeptical and somewhat jaded about public school systems in PA, and yes I am a pure product of private school.  But truthfully, that occured because at the time my parents worried about what we would learn and not learn in Lower Merion School District, and I am forever grateful they sacrificed so we could go to private school. Not that private schools don’t have coach issues – Shipley had one a year ago when a squash coach found himself in the hot seat for having an affair with a student.  I lost track of the case in September, so I am not sure what happened to the guy James Civello (the former Shipley coach)  in the end.  If I am reading the court docket correctly, he has not yet had his trial.

I am indeed critical of public school systems, but heck, all you have to do is follow a non-profit action organization called LMVUE and other grass-roots groups that fight for public school education and you will get an education of your own.

When I was first introduced to the West Chester Area School District I was appalled by what they called education in the elementary and middle schools.   Let’s start with how much bullying is tolerated in the elementary and middle schools, how they don’t really want gifted student programs, and many other issues.  What happened to the language programs in at least the elementary schools? What’s up with in essence, science in a box?  I saw first hand via a friend, what qualified as “homework” in basics like social studies.

I said it before and I will repeat myself, all I see out of West Chester Area School District is a dumbing down of students and paper pushing.   I remember spring a year ago  something coming out about rankings – I don’t remember West Chester being so hot when it came to stacking up side by side against other school districts.  According to the Philadelphia Business Journal the top ten included Tredyffrin-Easttown, Radnor, Lower Merion, Unionville-Chadds Ford, Central Bucks and others.  But not West Chester. West Chester according to the statistics was 41 in this ranking of PSSA scores.

But now we flash forward to the giant high schools, and today’s news brings the news of a touchy feely coach.  A swim coach at Bayard Rustin High School named Kenneth Fuller, who judging from NBC10’s 11 a.m. news report lives in West Goshen has been accused of doing some non-swimming stroking with an underage girl he was coaching.

O.k. …ICK.  Just ick.  I do not and never will get older guys who have this Lolita fixation.  And it is not the first teacher I have heard of doing this, as these things are unfortunately in the news far too often.  And then of course there are the incidents which never make it to the news or get reported beyond family.

For example, way back when I was in high school I used to do an occasional appearance as a catering extra hand with a friend from high school – it paid better than baby-sitting.  This one summer she and I were extra servers at a very Main Line wedding.   I was either 16 or 17 and one of the guests, a man at that time I believe close to 30 if not a little older came onto me.  It was very creepy.

What was even more creepy is when he called me up at my parents’ house a few days after the wedding like he was some teenage boy asking for a date.  Unfortunately for him, he was one of those obnoxious touchy feely men who was a known quantity on the teen girl circuit, and he had actually approached another girl I knew at the time.  I made it simple for him, I told him if he ever called me or bothered me again I would tell all my friends, my father, and all my parents’ friends.  That worked like a charm.  I never outed the guy, and see no point now since in essence my friends and I rendered him a failure to launch at the time and scared the crap out of him, but when I would occasionally see him as an adult at things with his wife and family I was hard pressed not to vomit.

So, this whole West Chester incident, while disgusting if true, is not surprising.  You just never know what lurks behind a seemingly nice package.  Human nature is a funny thing.

However, I did find what the West Chester Area School District Superintendent Jim Scanlon said this morning on the 11 a.m. NBC10 news cast somewhat disturbing.  When he was speaking about the incident he said that this Kenneth Fuller was not a teacher, just a coach.  News flash: IT DOESN’T MATTER.  What matters is that the school district hired him and if the allegations are proven true, they had this guy around students.  And besides, isn’t coaching in a sense, teaching?  Instead of teaching academics, coaches instruct/teach with regard to various sports?

Schools always protest when one of these relationships is outed that they did background checks, criminal checks, etc.  So I have to ask, is there something else they should be doing, or perhaps paying for more thorough background and criminal checks? (there are different levels of checks – I know because I used to perform them as part of my previous job.)

This distinction made by West Chester Area School District Superintendent Jim Scanlon that Fuller “was not employed as a classroom teacher.  Like all employees, Mr. Fuller had state and federal criminal history clearances and child abuse clearances before he was hired” just doesn’t sit right.  To me it is like there is a subliminal message or the school district preparing to do a Pontius Pilate.

Parents need to start asking this school district some tough questions.  And if they don’t get the answers they need, they should work to get a new school board and administration.  Yes, these incidents happen.  But the true test is in how the school district handles this issue, not just how a purported criminal act is investigated and disposed of through the judicial system.  The school district needs to be accountable for their staff….no matter who they are.

As for this coach, shame on him.  The trust of students and young people in general is a very big deal.  Not only do you have a part in shaping the adults they will become, you are the adult in the equation.  If this is true, this coach deserves what he gets.

Here’s the media on this:

VIDEO

NBC10: Swimming Coach Has Sex With H.S. Student: Cops

A swimming coach in the West Chester Area School District is accused of posing as a student’s father to get her excused from class so he could have sex with her.

By  Jackie Gailey

|  Thursday, May 17, 2012  |  Updated 8:22 AM EDT

A swimming coach at Bayard Rustin High School in Chester County was arrested Wednesday, he’s accused of having sex with an underaged student.

Kenneth Fuller, 47, is charged with institutional sexual assault, corruption of a minor and related charges.

He was arraigned late Wednesday night and only NBC10 was there as he was escorted to Chester County Prison after failing to make his $250,000 bail.

Fuller met the female victim away from the school on three occasions between April 27, 2012 and May 2, 2012 and had sex with her, according to Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan…… pretended to be the victim’s father and had the victim excused from school for a fake doctor’s appointment so that they could have sex, according to Hogan…..NBC10 has obtained a letter sent home to parents by West Chester Area School District Superintendent Jim Scanlon. It reads in part:

“Mr. Fuller had been employed in the West Chester Area School District since the 2009-10 season as the coach for the boys and girls swimming team.  He was not employed as a classroom teacher.

Here is the press release from West Chester Area School District:

Rustin HS Boys and Girls Swimming Coach Arrested