ELKHART, IN – The sexual abuse attorneys at Massillamany Jeter & Carson are investigating reports of student sexual abuse in the Elkhart Community Schools. Goshen police arrested 54-year-old Donald Shafer when they found him with a teenage boy in his car parked at a local park around 3:00 a.m. Shafer faces multiple charges arising from the incident. According to media reports, Shafer worked as a social studies teacher at West Side Middle School.
MJC Partner and sexual abuse attorney Tom Blessing said “This case raises a lot of questions in my mind. Who hired this guy? What kind of background investigation was done? Has he ever been suspected of misconduct with a student before? What were the school’s policies on the prevention, detection and reporting of sexual abuse? What kind of training did Elkhart Community Schools provide not only school employees, parents and students?”
According to Blessing, there are often institutional failures which result in students being sexually abused by teachers. “When a teacher is grooming or abusing students, there are usually warning signs or ‘red flags.’” Blessing said that these warning signs are often overlooked or ignored because members of the school community have not been trained on how to recognize them. “It’s usually a combination of bad policies, inadequate training and lack of supervision which enables sexual misconduct in our schools,” Blessing explained.
If you or someone you know has been the victim of sexual abuse at school, please contact our office for a free confidential consultation with one of our Indiana school sexual abuse attorneys.
Read the full article here: Elkhart teacher arrested on child seduction charges