Police arrested David A. Hay, a top education bureaucrat in New York City, and charged him for trying to meet and molest a boy, media reports say.
Yet the accusation is hardly a surprise or all that unusual.
The data show that millions of public school children may have been the targets of sexual abuse by those they should able to trust.
Big Bucks for the Harvard Man
Until he was fired, Hay was the deputy chief of staff to New York City’s schools chieftain, Richard Carranza. The city paid him $168,000 annually, almost three times the median income for city-dwelling families.
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Police collared him at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee on Sunday, the New York Post reported. Hay was trying to arrange a tryst with a minor over the computer, police allege.
Hay was charged under the state’s law that criminalizes “use[ing] a computerized communication system to communicate with an individual who the actor believes or has reason to believe has not attained the age of 16 years with intent to have sexual contact or sexual intercourse with the individual,” the Post reported.
Hay returned to Wisconsin for the dirty deed for a reason. He is a native of Antigo, the New York Times reported, and was a principal in two districts.
Neenah, where he was charged, is about 100 miles north of Milwaukee on Lake Winnebago and about six miles south of Appleton.
Other Cases in New York
Hay isn’t the only Empire State educator in trouble.
In October, police arrested Grace Trinidad, a top authority at the New Visions Advanced Math & Science High School.
Police allege she had sex with a 15-year-old student.
Trinidad, dean of discipline at the school, “befriended the teen and repeatedly invited him to her home in the South Bronx,” the New York Daily News reported.
“During their most recent encounter, Trinidad and the student were watching movies when they began kissing and performed [an unnatural sex act] on each other, authorities allege,” the newspaper reported.
“They also had full intercourse in a meeting in August, prosecutors said at her arraignment in Bronx criminal court early Wednesday.”
Trinidad also tried to persuade the boy to “destroy all the texts, explicit photos and videos that they had exchanged — and to deny any relationship.”
Yet another case is even worse.
In July, police charged Gilbert Rimple, a 63-year-old second grade teacher, with multiple counts of sexually assaulting a child under 13 years, NJ.com reported.
Rimple taught at a public school in Brooklyn.
Public School Molestation Way Too Common
Though most of what Americans read about such abuse seems to focus on Catholic priests, public school employees are just as much if not more likely to seek sexual favors from the students for whom they are responsible.
In 2004, the U.S. Department of Education reported that as many as 10 percent of school students are molested by teachers, coaches, bus drivers, and other school personnel.
If true, that would mean millions of kids are touched, pinched, grabbed, or otherwise molested.
DOE cited multiple studies, including one from the American Association of University Women in 2000.
If that figure holds true today, then 5.66 million of the nation’s 56.6 million K-12 students have suffered some form of sexual abuse.
More recent data are similar:
Citing SESAME — Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct & Exploitation — Children’sTreatmentCenter.com reported that “just under 500 educators were arrested in 2015” for abusing pupils:
And:
Of children in 8th through 11th grade, about 3.5 million students (nearly 7%) surveyed reported having had physical sexual contact from an adult (most often a teacher or coach). The type of physical contact ranged from unwanted touching of their body, all the way up to sexual intercourse.
This statistic increases to about 4.5 million children (10%) when it takes other types of sexual misconduct into consideration, such as being shown pornography or being subjected to sexually explicit language or exhibitionism.
In 2017, the Associated Press reported that 17,000 school kids were sexually assaulted by their peers between 2011 and 2015.
“How many kids are sexually abused by their teachers?” Slate.com asked in 2012. The webzine’s answer, after citing studies?
“Probably millions.”
Photo: ilkaydede/iStock/Getty Images Plus
R. Cort Kirkwood is a longtime contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
