State authorities say it happened as recently as June: A trusted teacher took advantage of a student who is one of society's most vulnerable — a disabled 14-year-old who was in special education classes.
Stephanie Amato
Stephanie Amato, 30, a special education teacher in northeast Philadelphia, was charged this summer with statutory sexual assault and several other charges after police said she sexually assaulted one of her male students "on a number of occasions," according to Philly.com. Amato has been released on bail, and her case is moving forward.
Experts say predators in the classroom take advantage of some of the most vulnerable children in a systematic way.
"It really is a deeply rooted silent epidemic," Mary Lou Bensy, an adjunct professor of special education at Hofstra University, said. "People don't want to talk about this, because they don't want to think their teachers could be this. It's happening often, and most severely with our most vulnerable kids."
In Pennsylvania, reports of sexual misconduct by educators has increased over the past five years for variouse reasons ranging from changed reporting requirements to a proliferation of access to students through new forms of technology.
Bensy and her co-researchers in a June study were among the first to conduct a study specific to the sexual exploitation of special education students in a school setting. More than 350 people responded to a web survey conducted on the topic, and while Bensy admits the methodology wasn't perfect, the results aligned with generally held beliefs about the abuse of people disabilities.
Researchers roundly agree that there is yet to exist a reliable study that can demonstrate how likely it is for a student — disabled or not — to be sexually abused by an educator or in a school setting, mostly because no government agency keeps track of these reports.
Parents, advocates and administrators responded to the survey that was distributed through special needs centers.
According to Bensy, the survey found that students with disabilities who were sexually abused at school were more likely to receive most of their education in self-contained settings.
She is part of a growing school of thought in the realm of special education that would argue students with disabilities should not be segregated from other students in schools. This separation, it is argued, gives predators much more intimate access to special education students who might not understand the difference between friendship and sexual abuse.
"What happens in separate locations is you have so many adults," Bensy said. "Our students are more than twice as likely to be abused by an adult in these settings, so we're setting them up in the worst-case scenario. It's like the perfect storm."
Other findings from the study include:
- More than half of the victims were reported to have severe cognitive disabilities.
- The most frequent type of abuse was "comments, jokes and gestures," reported by more than two-thirds of respondents outlining what had happened to a specific victim. About 30 percent of respondents reported forced intercourse.
- The school "started an investigation" in 37 percent of cases. The school "did nothing" in 24 percent.
- Three-quarters of respondents reported the abuse happened more than once.