Philadelphia students as young as 5 are being caught in a variety of situations - even the rape of classmates. The district has hired abuse counselors to intervene.
At one Philadelphia public school earlier this month, two boys were caught alone in a rest room, one atop the other, their underpants off and their groins in each other's faces.
They were kindergartners.
And it was no isolated case.
Dozens of Philadelphia School District police reports over the last year detail instances of youngsters' ordering classmates to perform sex acts, grabbing private parts, simulating sex acts on one another, and writing sexually explicit notes that sound like something out of a pornographic movie.
It's happening in classrooms and hallways, in rest rooms and on playgrounds.
While the number of morals offenses declined in Philadelphia's schools in the last year, high-profile - sometimes violent - incidents involving the youngest of students have emphasized the problem anew. The cases have prompted the district and the city's Department of Human Services to hire a private counseling agency to screen children and provide help if necessary.
Last school year, of the 462 morals offenses, 145 cases - nearly a third - occurred among the district's 71,370 students in kindergarten through fourth grade. Through Nov. 30 this school year, 36 incidents were reported in those grades.
"You've had some high-profile cases of children at a very young age, attempting to engage in inappropriate sexual behavior," said Paul Vallas, the district's chief executive officer.
Some acts have turned criminal.
Last month at Stetson Middle School in Philadelphia's Kensington section, an 11-year-old boy was charged with raping a 12-year-old male classmate in a stairway. The same week, police charged a 12-year-old boy with forcing an 8-year-old girl to perform oral sex near some trash bins outside Alexander Wilson Elementary in West Philadelphia.
In January, the Joseph J. Peters Institute, a Philadelphia group that counsels victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse, will begin screening and helping young children who exhibit inappropriate sexual behavior in the city's schools. The $15,000 contract will cover 40 students, but could be expanded as needed, officials said.
While the institute will focus first on students in kindergarten through fourth grade first, there are plans to work with children through age 13, officials said.
"Instead of just punishing these kids, we need to get them evaluated," said Paul Fink, a psychiatrist who serves as a consultant to the school district.
The screening, Fink said, will consider: Has the child ever been abused? Is the child exposed to sexual behavior? Is the child exposed to pornography?
While screenings are subject to parental consent, the district can report suspected abuse to Human Services if a family declines to cooperate.
The district also in recent years has contracted with Ardmore-based Phoenix Education Group, which trains staff to recognize and respond to sexual abuse and sexual harassment among young children. There are 67 training sessions scheduled after the holiday break.
What years ago used to be natural curiosity that manifested itself in "playing doctor" or "show and tell" has taken on a more aggressive and sexual tone in some children, who are exhibiting acts that should be far beyond their knowledge.
Experts say Philadelphia's experience is part of a growing problem nationwide as youngsters are exposed to more explicit material on television and the Internet and in their homes.
"The stuff available at their fingertips - that is really going to change the development of a whole generation of youth," said Jill Levenson, a professor of human services at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., who researches sexual violence.
While some acts constitute assault, others appear consensual, such as the kindergartners' case at Willard Elementary in Kensington.
Students are acting out what they have seen or experienced in an abusive relationship, experts say.
"The more children are exposed to adultlike sexual behaviors, the more likely they are to try some of that on," said Thomas Haworth, director of child and adolescent services at the Peters Institute. "The children with their faces in each other's groins, that's not something you would come upon in normal childhood. That's adult sexual behavior."
The incidents have upset and shocked staff and parents.
Viviana Sweeney has yet to send her 5-year-old son back to school after a Nov. 8 incident in which a kindergarten teacher at Drew Elementary in University City discovered the boy and a classmate in a rest room, their underpants down. The other boy was lying atop her son, simulating sex with him.
Sweeney is upset that the boys were allowed together unsupervised in the rest room, which is in the classroom. Her son, she said, knows nothing of sexuality and was instructed by the other student.
"He's uncomfortable now bathing. He's constantly drawing pictures of police taking the bad guy away. It's affected him," said Sweeney, who is seeking to transfer her son to another school.
Sweeney said she is publicly discussing the incident because she wants parents to know about a danger that students face. "I just feel like it is really sad that most parents don't know what they are getting into when they are putting their child in public school," she said. "You are trusting the teacher, you are trusting the school to protect your child, and look what happens."
Drew Principal Maxine Jones said staff members do their best to monitor students.
"We don't have 1-to-1 ratios with children," she said. "We may have 1-to-30. It's difficult to watch children at every single minute."
Yet Harvey Rice, the state's safe-schools advocate who helps victims of violence in city schools, said the district should review its procedures on rest-room use, because many of the offenses have occurred there.
"I think we can see by the incident reports that it has to go all the way down to kindergarten now," Rice said.
Kindergarten teacher Erlene Bass Nelson - a 47-year veteran - said she had taken steps to be extra careful not to allow children in the rest room together again.
The incident, she said, happened just before dismissal. One boy had been in the rest room for a while, and the other said he had to go badly, so she told him to knock on the door and tell his classmate. A few minutes later, as she was preparing the other children to leave for the day, she saw the door ajar and found the boys.
"Naturally, I was shocked," Nelson said.
But she reacted calmly so that she wouldn't upset the boys, who were laughing and smiling. "I didn't want to make them feel guilty or shameful," she said.
Sweeney's son, she said, "jumped up and said, 'Oh, we were only doing it for fake.'"
CEO Vallas said that in addition to more training for staff and counseling for students, the district was improving school security, which should help lessen the cases of sexual misconduct. The district is adding surveillance cameras, increasing parent patrols, and encouraging more active hall-walking by school security, he said.
These efforts have already led to a sharp decline in morals offenses. But there's only so much schools can do, he said.
"When you have children as young as first grade engaging in sexualized behavior," he said, "that wasn't learned in the school."
At Willard School, principal Maritza Garay has overheard children talking about what they watched late at night on the adult-oriented Spice Channel.
"The children should be sleeping at that hour," Garay said. "Their minds and their bodies are not ready for that kind of information."
Nan Daniels, principal of Cassidy Elementary in West Philadelphia, said a sexually explicit note written by a fifth grader was traced to his exposure to pornographic movies at a friend's house. The note was so sophisticated that school officials at first thought adults were involved.
"The parent was extremely upset," Daniels said, "to see all this stuff written by her child."
Morals Offenses in City Schools
The Philadelphia School District reported 462 morals offenses in 2003-04. The incidents included:
Indecent assault: 310
Indecent exposure: 56
Rape and attempted rape: 10
Other sexual misconduct:86
That's down 20 percent from 2002-03, when 574 incidents occurred. Incidents reported that year include:
Indecent assault:403
Indecent exposure: 54
Rape and attempted rape: 10
Sexual misconduct: 107
Where to get help
Joseph J. Peters Institute, 100 S. Broad St., Suite 1700, Philadelphia 19110. 215-701-1560. Group counsels both victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse.
Women Organized Against Rape, 1233 Locust St., Suite 202, Philadelphia 19107. 24-hour hotline: 215-985-3333. Provides counseling for victims and their entire families when incidents occur.
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Posted by Editor at January 6, 2005 11:43 AM
