OJR Speaks Out on Teacher's Arrest for Sex Abuse

Owen J. Roberts High School in South Coventry

Blogger's Note: An earlier version of this post inaccurately quoted Erin Marcellus. The quote has been removed. I apologize for the error.

"Heartbreak," "disappointed," "disturbing" and "shame" were among the adjectives used Monday night by those discussing the arrest of a longtime Owen J. Roberts High School teacher on charges of sexual assault -- a behavior many said the administration had been warned about, and ignored,  multiple times in recent years.
The comments came during an online Owen J. Roberts School Board meting attended, digitally, by nearly 200 people.

The trigger for the comments was the May 7 arrest by state police of Stephen E.  Raught, 53, who, among other duties, was the longtime advisor to the student government at the high school, as well as the president Roberts Education Association teachers union.

The charges came after a 17-year-old female student, told police in March that Raught had taken her to his classroom when she had stopped by the school to pick up a textbook. Inside, he began kissing and fondling her, then engaged in oral sex with her through her clothing as she sat on a countertop.

Stephen E. Raught

After news of the arrest spread through the community, 43 former students who had served on the school's student government over the years crafted a May 10 letter to the school board taking the district to task for ignoring earlier warnings and complaints about Raught's behavior and calling for definitive steps to better protect students.

As of Monday, more than 880 people in the community had added their signature to the letter, according to alum Molly Graham, who was permitted to read the entire letter into the record at Monday's school board meeting.

But before she read the letter, Graham addressed the May 11 letter to the community issued by Superintendent Susan Lloyd which began with the sentence "I think I can speak for us all when I say that we are shocked by the grave recent developments in our district. "

"There are many women in this community you cannot speak for," said Graham, "because we were not shocked." Graham said inappropriate behavior by Raught "has existed for many years" and was reported several times to various administrators.

His arrest "has exposed how the administration dismissed" the students and teachers who filed those complaints about Raught, said Graham, adding it had also exposed "how you failed them."

"Even though we may never know the full scope of this individual’s inappropriate actions towards students over the years, we already know that this faculty member’s unprofessional behavior was no secret in our community," read part of the letter.

Reaction to the arrest among former students "have many of us thinking about whether this could have been prevented. Was a pattern of misbehavior ignored? Should we have spoken up?" the letter's authors wrote.

"The truth is that students did speak up. This teacher’s inappropriate actions were reported and dismissed time and again," the letter read. "In one instance, a student said, “I reported it to admin and was told ‘you took that the wrong way.'"

"This is personal for so many people," said East Nantmeal resident Aubrey Stuber, who is one of the 43 authors of the letter.

"I have now personally heard more stories in a week than I would ever want to hear in a lifetime," said Stuber, adding that the stories of abuse and inappropriate behavior have entered her dreams and become nightmares.

"What will really move us to a better place is to have the heart to realize what these people went through," Stuber said.

Tina Grant said one former teacher who tried to report Raught, Jody McMahon, was instead subjected to questions about her mental stability and ultimately fired for an accusation similar to the one she made about Raught.

McMahon has waited two years for a hearing on her dismissal to be concluded and in the meantime "has been ruined financially," Grant said.

Katie O'Donnell, a 1999 OJR graduate, who said she is a survivor of sexual abuse by an adult, said "you had a whistleblower two years ago on staff, who was then accused herself?"

She added, "what concerns me most is the president of the union was the one she was accusing" and nothing happened and "apparently things have been rampant since then."

"I am extremely disappointed in the educators in this district," said Warwick resident Kristin Evans. "You are all mandated reporters and there are policies in place you are supposed to follow."

The arrest has also sparked a wider discussion about sexual abuse in Owen J. Roberts and what is being done to prevent it, and deal with it.

East Vincent resident Andrea Manavol, who has three children in the district and said she is a survivor of sexual assault by a peer, "many years ago," said "many women who come forward are not listened to." 

"Since my son's freshman year, three teachers have been arrested for something like this," she said. "That's disturbing."

Jennifer Wunderlich of East Coventry asked "how can students who plead guilty in court to sexual assault can still be allowed to continue in the sale extra curricular activity with their victim?"

West Vincent resident Beth McDonnell is the parent of two younger children and said her eighth grader told her he had never had an education about sexual assault.

"I'm starting to wonder about this school district I was so excited to send my children to," she said.

The Owen J. Roberts School Board

Whether or not the district has the right policies, and curriculum, in place to protect students from sexual assault is one of the things the board has directed the administration to take a long look at, said School Board President Karel Minor.

He said because the matter is still a criminal investigation, the board members "can't speak as freely as we might like to," but added "we are looking to take action."

That action, he said, will begin with a special policy meeting in June to gather all "safety reporting and communications policies" together for a review. The board has asked its solicitor to conduct a review and also to look for an outside auditor to do the same -- all actions the letter from the alumni asked the board to take.

Minor said the review might not happen as quickly as some might like, but urged the community to "hold us accountable. This has had me doing a lot of soul searching. We could have done better."

Board member Jennifer Munson warned that a thorough review may last "beyond the start of school." 

"My heart breaks a little bit when I hear the experience folks have had. We have to understand what a safe space looks like," said board member Paul Friel. "We have to get everyone in the whole community, all the stakeholders, look each other in the eye and ask ourselves are we doing everything we could be doing?"

OJR Superintendent Susan Lloyd

"I am exquisitely disappointed in those I have relied upon to do their duty," said board member Melissa Booth. "Thoroughly disappointed."

Responding to a comment about the expressions of officials on the screen, Lloyd said "the sense of shame we feel could be what people see on my face, shame that despite everything we do, this is still happening."

Sexual assault on students "tarnishes our reputation every time it happens and every teacher feels it," Lloyd said.

$107M Owen J. Roberts Budget Hikes Taxes 2.4%

Photos by Evan Brandt

A LINE OF CHAMPIONS: Members of the Owen J. Roberts High School Track and Field Team, this year's PAC-10 Champions, were recognized by the school board at Monday night's meeting.

The Owen J. Roberts School Board unanimously approved a $107 million budget for the 2018-2019 school year Monday night that will raise property taxes by 2.4 percent.

The exact amount budgeted for spending is $106,878,490 and includes a $10 million capital budget and $7.1 million of debt.

TOPS IN BUSINESS: Some of the 26 Owen J. Roberts 

students who qualified/competed in the DECA

International Career Development Conference who were

recognized by the school board Monday night.

Chief Financial Officer Jaclin Krumrine said the tax hike is "at the index," or the maximum allowed by the state's inflation-based tax cap.

She also said the district did make use of any of the "exceptions" which state law allows districts to exceed their index, for things like construction costs of special education.

The board also unanimously adopted the millage rate of 31.2366 mills.

Those who pay their full tax bill by Aug. 31, are entitled to a 2 percent discount on the amount. Those who don't pay by Oct. 31, face a 10 percent penalty.

No one from the public spoke either for or against the budget.

However, there was one speaker of note -- Lucas Gray.

Gray is the student government executive council president. This was his last meeting as he is graduating and the school board presented him with a small gift.

He presented them with a appeal to stop behaving badly.

While thanking them for the opportunity, he confessed that he left almost every meeting feeling "frustrated and embarrassed."

Not because of anything he had done, but because of the board's behavior toward each other.

Lucas said he was disappointed "by the undertone of mistrust, the mudslinging" and the "petty jibes."

This behavior, he said, embarrasses a district "that deserves better."

Click this link to read more about the school's board's dysfunction.

And now, the Tweets. Amid them, you will find speeches by the high school valedictorian and two (? must have been a tie) salutatorians.

They're worth a look, successful scholars talking about the teachers who inspired them.

OJR Adopts $107M Budget, 2.4% Tax Hike

Four Times a Charm for OJR School Board Vacancy

Photos by Evan Brandt

Matthew Fitzgerald is the newest member of the Owen J. Roberts School board , but it wasn't easy.

Filling a vacancy on the Owen J. Roberts School Board Monday night took three hours, four votes, a non-vote and a recess.

The vacancy was created by the unexpected death of board member James B. Frees on Feb. 1.

Frees, who had just won another four-year term in November, was recognized by the school board,

Superintendent Susan Lloyd, left, and School Board President 

Melissa Booth present the family of James Frees with a resolution

and keepsake Wildcat.

which provided a resolution and Wildcat statue, and by state Rep. Tim Hennessey, R-26th Dist., who provided proclamations passed in both the Pennsylvania House and State.

A total of four people applied to fill the vacancy. Two of them, Don Foy and Robert Rasmussen, had run in the November election and lost and a third, William Kleinfelter, had just finished a term on the board.

But the eventual winner -- after a long and drawn-out process -- was Matthew Fitzgerald, a 51-year-old engineer from East Vincent Township.

He told reporters after the meeting that he had intended to run in the next round of local elections but the death of Frees, who was a personal friend, "accelerated my timetable."

What was not accelerated was the process by which he was chosen.

At 6:30 p.m., all four candidates were interviewed by the board, which is to say all four spoke and all four were then asked one question -- whether they intended to run once the term is up in two years.

(Because Frees had just been reelected, state law dictates the person chosen to replace him only holds the seat until the next municipal election, which will be in November of 2019.)

Then, the vote on which candidate would be chosen was placed at the end of the night's agenda. This being employee and student recognition night, more than 100 people were in attendance and there were a lot of awards to give out before the board got down to business.

The voting finally began before 9 p.m., with each board member naming the candidate of their choice.

On the first round, Kleinfelter received one vote, Fitzgerald three, Rasmussen two and Foy two.

So Kleinfelter was dropped from the voting and in the second round, Foy received two, Rasmussen three and Fitzgerald three.

The board then decided to take a recess, so they could talk among themselves, so long as no more than five spoke together at once, because that would be a quorum and violate the Open Meetings Law.

But before the recess, they decided to take public comment, which took another 20 minutes.

Finally they returned and were deadlocked once again because board member Karel Minor declined to vote at all or, as he put, just voted no. That left Rasmussen with three and Fitzgerald with three votes each and School Board President Melissa Booth need not cast her vote.

Finally, board member Douglas Hughes, who called Minor's action "disappointing," switched his vote from Rasmussen to Fitzgerald -- seemingly as much to get a result as anything.

He was joined by Booth and they, along with members Pamela Clouser-White, Cathie Whitlock, Leslie Proffitt, who voted by speaker phone, and that got them to the requisite five votes.

Here are the Tweets from the meeting: