EVANSVILLE, IN – A teacher and track coach in southwest Indiana has been charged with multiple felonies for sexually abusing a female student. Authorities allege that Noah Mikael McBride had sex with the girl numerous times over several months in 2023. Local media reported that McBride was a employed as a special education teacher and track coach at North High School in the Evansville-Vanderburgh Community School Corporation. Court records reflect that the girl was fifteen years old at the time and that some of the charges relate to alleged conduct dating back to 2022.
“It’s a heartbreaking story, but unfortunately one we see all the time: a so-called ‘trusted adult’ uses his position of authority to prey upon children,” said Massillamany Jeter & Carson partner and sexual abuse attorney Tom Blessing. “The investigations done by police and DCS should shed some light on how this all started and how it was able to continue for so long.”
According to Blessing, there are often institutional failures which lead to teachers grooming and sexually abusing students. “In a lot of these cases, one of the main reasons that children are sexually abused by teachers and coaches is because youth-serving organizations—whether it’s a school, sports club or church—don’t have good policies for the prevention, detection and reporting of sexual abuse. Another big problem we see besides the bad policies is the lack of any meaningful training, not just of staff but parents and their children.” Blessing said the results are predictable. “Not surprisingly, that combination of deficient policies and inadequate training frequently enables the sexual abuse of children.”
Read more from the article here: High school track coach accused of sexually assaulting student ‘nearly every day’