It is no longer like the good old America where justice is served and people are punished no matter who they are. Corruption is now in the way of justice and American values, especially in high schools. We must acknowledge these issues to protect our kids and bring back the good old days to our society. I have a prime example of a theoretical of this happening.
newsweek.com
There is a girl who is involved in many extracurriculars in high school. One night when she was doing rehearsal for a theater production at her school, she heard a click of the camera when she was changing out of her costume. This boy was taking pictures of girls changing in the musical and no teachers were around to punish him. The girl brings this to the attention of the school officials. They only decided to kick the boy out of being in the musical. This would ease the girl for the time being until she decided to do the play in the spring. This boy also decided to do the play since there was a different teacher in charge of it than of the musical. This girl is immediately uncomfortable and is afraid of history repeating itself. The boy continues to be creepy to girls in the play now by touching them and taking pictures. This boy would also do similar things to girls in all the other clubs he is involved in as well but the teachers are not aware of any of the incidents and cannot protect the girls and other students since the officials would not tell them anything. While this may be a hypothetical situation, it is happening across the country. If the teachers were aware of the student causing issues in my hypothetical, they would be able to be more aware and watchful over the students. Sexual assault and harassment are running rampant in our high schools and it is usually the same students that cause the problems. This is a pattern. This pattern is caused by a lack of transparency by school officials about incidents and a lack of teaching students what is right or wrong.
A lack of transparency can simply be not telling faculty and staff about problems with sexual harassment that happen in the school. If faculty and staff don't know what is going on, how can they protect other students? An article on Investigative Reporting Workshop has a story very similar to mine. There was also a lack of transparency with faculty, "...when Grace moved to high school, nobody told the new principal of the previous harassment. She was again placed in the same class as her tormentor." Not telling the new principal made it easy for the student to continue to creep Grace out and other girls like how the boy in my hypothetical situation could continue doing things to girls because the teachers were not notified. These transparency issues could be easily avoided if only the school would not just try to cover these incidents up and tell the faculty what students they have to look out for. This would in turn lessen the amount and make fewer girls become victims. Investigative Reporting Workshop also has statistics on this matter:
And data shows that the total number of in-school sex assault complaints keeps rising. During the 2015-2016 school year, districts reported 2,191 cases.
- In 2016-2017: Up 12 percent, to 2,464
- In 2017-2018: Up 8 percent, to 2,656
- In 2018-2019: Up 4 percent, to 2,763
These statistics show that sexual assault is a problem and will continue to be a problem that threatens our youth whether we want to deny it or not. Schools need to address sexual harassment issues to lessen them. From Case.IQ, they bring up the idea of "School Officials are Ignoring the Problem" This brought up the idea of schools trying to cover up problems because they look bad. We must enforce values of honesty on the school officials for transparency so we can be aware of and protect our children as needed. Those percentages will decrease if we acknowledge them and do not try to cover them up.
Some people might say that issues with sexual harassment in high schools have been around forever. While I may agree with that statement, I still think it should not stop us from trying to protect our children and trying to push good values in our youth. We need to bring back good values and character into this country and starting with the youth is the first step we need to take. Teaching youth what is right and wrong would promote traditional values while also lowering the percentage of them committing heinous acts of sexual harassment toward their peers. This manuscript states many behaviors and mindsets that schools can try to teach and push to students who may commit those acts. "Encouraging empathy, helping others, knowledge of sexual consent, impulse control, positive social norms, and school connection can all decrease SV." If these are taught to the students who are "just learning" they may end up having an understanding and the sexual harassment issues may go down with this teaching and punishment. It will also make them more respectable and productive members of our society.
There also may be some people as well who worry about the privacy of their kids if there was more transparency to the teachers. I completely understand them as a parent, you do not want it to feel like the school is against your child. They do have to realize that their child could be committing heinous acts against others in school. The students who are victims of sexual harassment and assault need to be protected and in school, the only adults there for them are the faculty. The faculty need to know about the problems to be aware of them and fix them. You cannot expect your child to get no consequences if they hurt others. What would we be teaching them if we just let them go?
Life is different and rough at this time for many of us but the sexual assault problem with the youth in high schools could be ruining our future. Teenagers are forced to grow up enough already thanks to social media but the incidents are only making young people grow up even more when they should not have to. Kids need to learn and grow into themselves to be true functioning members of society but this issue is one of many holding them back. We as adults should look out for them and protect them while trying to instill good values in them; however, schools not punishing and trying to cover up the sexual assault issues are only making it hard for the adults around to help the victims. This only fosters corruption and a false sense of security. We must protect our kids and stand up for them to brighten our future as a whole.
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