No charges to be filed by prosecutor against Highland principals

12:12 a.m. Nov. 16 — By Randa Wag­ner — UPDATED 3:21 p.m. -

Mor­row County Pros­e­cu­tor Charles How­land has released his deci­sion regard­ing pos­si­ble charges against Prin­ci­pals Shawn Winkelfoos, Debra Knechtly and teacher Karen Fowler after an inves­ti­ga­tion over fail­ure to report an alleged inci­dent involv­ing a student.

In a press release issued at 11;12 a.m. Nov. 19, How­land stated, in part:

“Upon review of the file, the County Pros­e­cu­tor found that a prima facie (all ele­ments of the offense have been met) case has been made con­cern­ing the edu­ca­tors involved. How­ever, the alleged per­pe­tra­tor of the abuse was not an adult. This fact was a source con­fu­sion to the edu­ca­tors. Fur­ther dis­cus­sion of the facts will require dis­clo­sure of infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing a juve­nile that state law pro­hibits. All abuse sit­u­a­tions are bad, how­ever in the present sit­u­a­tion, the abuse issues have resulted in no phys­i­cal injuries.

“Due to the con­fus­ing nature of the facts of this case, the County Pros­e­cu­tor will decline charges against Ms. Fowler, Mr. Winkelfoos and Ms. Knechtly. The law pre­sumes inno­cence until proof of guilt beyond a rea­son­able doubt is established.”

A press release from the Mor­row County Sheriff’s Office Nov. 14 reported an inci­dent of pos­si­ble sex­ual mis­con­duct by a stu­dent that occurred Octo­ber 19, and an inves­ti­ga­tion sug­gested proper pro­to­col (accord­ing to the Ohio Revised Code) for report­ing child abuse or neglect was not fol­lowed by the school staff.

“As a result, two ele­men­tary prin­ci­pals have been placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave for not imme­di­ately noti­fy­ing Children’s Ser­vices or law enforce­ment, as the statute man­dates,” the press release said.

High­land Super­in­ten­dent Dr. Bill Dodds con­firmed this, adding grades K-2 Prin­ci­pal Knechtly and grades 3–5 Prin­ci­pal Winkelfoos, “have tem­porar­ily been relieved of their duties while an inves­ti­ga­tion is con­ducted by the Mor­row County Sheriff’s Depart­ment” at the Nov. 13 High­land School Board meet­ing. Supt. Dodds also said the inves­ti­ga­tion does not involve any improper con­duct between school employ­ees and stu­dents or between adults.”

He reit­er­ated that state­ment at a spe­cial board meet­ing on Nov. 18, where he and board mem­bers stated the alleged inci­dent with the stu­dent did not occur on school prop­erty. A par­ent asked why, if the inci­dent did not occur on school prop­erty, the prin­ci­pals would be ‘in trou­ble’ over it.

Supt. Dodds said any time a report of abuse or mis­con­duct — on or off school prop­erty — is made to a school offi­cial, they have a respon­si­bil­ity to report it to Children’s Ser­vices and/or law enforce­ment. The issue at hand is over whether that report was made in a timely fash­ion by the prin­ci­pals once they were aware of the sit­u­a­tion.
How­land said the inves­ti­ga­tion was con­ducted by the Sher­iffs Office ‘was com­plete and thor­ough’ and the High­land super­in­ten­dent ‘has assisted and fully coop­er­ated with the investigation.’

Supt. Dodds released a state­ment to the com­mu­nity Nov. 19 in response to Pros­e­cu­tor Howland’s determination.

“Upon today’s deci­sion of the pros­e­cu­tor to decline charges, the High­land Local School Dis­trict will now com­plete our own inves­ti­ga­tion to gather facts per­tain­ing solely to the issue of timely report­ing,” Dodds stated. “In the par­tic­u­lar report that led to the assign­ment of our admin­is­tra­tors to work from home, the school inves­ti­ga­tion, prior to hand­ing it over to the Mor­row County Sheriff’s Depart­ment, found there to have been no inci­dents that occurred at our ele­men­tary school. The risk level was assessed and plans imple­mented to ensure the con­tin­ued safety of our students.”

The state­ment also said when nec­es­sary, the school will admin­is­ter dis­ci­pline or pro­vide safety plans for indi­vid­ual or groups of stu­dents that vary in inten­sity and are pre­scrip­tive to each indi­vid­ual sit­u­a­tion. Dodds assured the com­mu­nity through the state­ment ‘that all reported inci­dents are addressed with those involved or poten­tially involved.’

“The Prosecutor’s deci­sion in this mat­ter should not be con­strued as dis­ap­proval of the inves­ti­ga­tion by the Sheriff’s Office or of High­land Schools,” Howland stated. “Their work in this mat­ter was excel­lent. How­ever, each case must be decided on its own merit and the con­fus­ing nature of the facts that make up this case was the decid­ing fac­tor. Cer­tainly, the edu­ca­tors now under­stand that they are required to report regard­less of the source of abuse. I have every con­fi­dence that in the future they will com­ply with the let­ter of the law. Fur­ther, the edu­ca­tors may still face dis­ci­pline from their own board and also pos­si­ble action by the State School Board.”

How­land added, ‘fail­ure to report abuse sit­u­a­tions by the Mor­row County edu­ca­tion com­mu­nity has been an ongo­ing prob­lem.’ In effort to resolve this mat­ter, he con­tin­ued, his office will now for­ward a let­ter to each school facil­ity that will out­line the oblig­a­tions of edu­ca­tors to report abuse sit­u­a­tions. This let­ter will include a copy of Ohio Revised Code sec­tion 2151.421.

“The Mor­row County edu­ca­tion com­mu­nity should take notice and be mind­ful that fur­ther vio­la­tions of the duty to report statute will result in charges,” How­land con­cluded in his state­ment. “The County Pros­e­cu­tor will not accept excuses of “I didn’t know I had to do that” any longer. The pro­tec­tion of chil­dren is everyone’s busi­ness. Among the edu­ca­tion com­mu­nity, the pro­tec­tion of chil­dren must be the first priority.”

Posted by Randa Wagner on Nov 19 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.