Stunning Incompetence by OPS Officials

This fledgling blog has only been in operation for a few months and already I find myself having to criticize Omaha’s local public education system for the second time. This time it is due to a much more egregious display of incompetence. A teacher at Hale Middle School named Shad Knutson was accused multiple times of sexual advances toward his students, and the response of OPS was to keep him on the job, citing a lack of evidence. Last I checked the touching of breasts and verbal sexual advances will almost never leave physical evidence unless one of the girls was wearing a hidden camera in her blouse so that seems like a ridiculous reason for not taking steps to have Knutson permanently relieved of his duties. The OWH article is a little unclear to me but it seems OPS was aware of multiple accusations against Knutson and yet took very little action in response. In fact, they did not report the allegations to law enforcement despite the fact that it is against the law not to do so. Of course I’m not naïve enough to think charges will actually be brought against the administrators who broke the law. (I could go on a long tangent about how ridiculous that is but I don’t want to digress from the main topic at hand.)

Now I would agree you have to be careful about firing a teacher after one accusation because it is entirely possible that one student may be lying, but multiple accusations would seem to provide adequate evidence that a teacher is in fact guilty of the alleged transgressions and should therefore not be allowed to continue to teach. OPS did not see it this way and after a few paid vacations Knutson was back on the job. Fortunately the law became involved after a parent of one of the victims notified Child Protective Services and strangely enough law enforcement did find sufficient reason to arrest Knutson on three felony counts of third-degree sexual assault.

So the question I want to address is, why did OPS administrators continue to aid Knutson in his crimes? I hate to blame the teacher’s union for this (just kidding, I love blaming unions) but it seems like unions promote this idea that teachers (or cops) need to be protected above all else, with little concern for the public. Administrators need to be reminded that first and foremost our education system was created to educate our youth, not as a make-work program to provide teachers with jobs. The goal is to educate our youth and to do so in an environment that is safe and conducive to learning. Needless to say having sexual predators teaching young boys and girls does not exactly fit that ideal. So if teachers are incompetent or criminal they should lose their jobs. It is really as simple as that. A friend of mine told me about a coworker of his who told a female coworker something sexually suggestive that is far too filthy to repeat here, and do you know what happened to him? He was fired! The only difference seems to be that my friend works in the private sector for a non-unionized company. I don’t know what it is about the public sector and unions that cause people to become so myopic to the point where they will let a sexual predator continue to teach, but I would love to see the law bring down the hammer on these administrators to help them see the light.