WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Prosecutor: Vt. Principal Failed to Protect Child
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St. Albans, Vermont - April 22, 2009
A Vermont school principal is facing a criminal charge of failing to inform authorities about the physical abuse of children in his school. It is believed to be the first time a Vermont school official has been charged with violating the state's mandatory reporting law. Vermont has had a mandatory reporting law for nearly 30 years that requires health and school officials to notify child protective services if they suspect a child has been physically or sexually abused. The maximum penalty is a fine of $500. But no school official had ever been charged with a violation until this week.
On Monday, Richford Elementary School principal Roger Gagne pleaded innocent to violating the mandatory reporting law at the district court in St. Albans.
"And that would be the failure to report the abuse of a student in his school by a teacher," Franklin County Prosecutor Jim Hughes said.
Hughes says the charges were filed because Gagne failed to immediately report to child protective services that fifth-grade teacher Ann Lavery had scratched a child as a punishment. The next day, Lavery hit the child in the head.
The state says if Gagne had reported as required by law the child would not have suffered a second time.
In court records police say when they asked Gagne why he did not report, he shrugged his shoulders and said he just didn't do it. When asked why he had not suspended Lavery, police say he asked if they know how hard it was to fire a teacher. Hughes is surprised that Gagne did not comply with the reporting law.
"So it's been out there for quite a while and people in a position working with kids are supposed to be trained on how to report and when to report and what to report. It just didn't happen in this matter," Hughes said.
Mothers of elementary school kids we spoke with in Richford told us that Gagne is a very nice man so the criminal charge caught them off guard.
"I'm surprised," said Jessica Church of Richford. "This is the first time I heard about it. And I think action should be taken and cause my son's in the first grade and if anybody ever did anything like that to him I'd definitely want the principal to be right there on top of everything."
"He should've been there in the beginning for this child. Not let it go on. You don't want a principal just to look the other way. You want him there," said Tammy Craig of Richford.
"He should've done what he was supposed to do obviously," said Nicole Letendre of Richford. "It's kind of disturbing that he tried to do it on his own and this had to come to this, you know."
We tried to get a response from school officials but this is school vacation week and they were unavailable.
The teacher in this case, Ann Lavery, 54, pleaded no contest to one count of simple assault in February. She was placed on probation for 18 months.
Brian Joyce - WCAX News
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