A duty to inform: delay reporting allegations of child or elder abuse even—for internal investigations—and you could land in jail - Safety & Security Agenda

HR Magazine, Sept, 2003 by Diane Cadrain

How much must a mandated reporter suspect to trigger the duty to report? There are many similarities between child and elder abuse reporting laws. Typically, all that is required is a suspicion, or a reason to suspect, that a child or vulnerable adult is being abused or neglected.

But there may be differences of opinion as to when suspicions should have arisen. Davidson explains that what reporters knew, when they knew it and when they reported will vary from one case to the next.

When to Make the Call?

Questions about when school officials' suspicions should have been raised were central to Bobet's situation in Florida.

Neither Bobet nor her attorney would return phone calls for this article. But Sgt. Ralph Moore of the Kissimmee Police Department and Dana Shaefer, coordinator of community relations for the Osceola County Public Schools, tell the story from their divergent points of view.

Moore says that Rossillo, the teacher in the case, would allegedly sit in a chair and ask one of the girls in his class to stand in front of him with her back turned and her hands behind her. "He'd then ask her to guess how many fingers he was putting in her hand. But at some point he allegedly put his penis into their hands" Moore says.

The children's parents came forward to the principal--a mandated reporter, Moore says. "The principal did an investigation and talked to the other kids. Instead of reporting it to police, he reported it to his HR manager, who was also a mandated reporter, but she didn't report it either. Instead, she put an investigator on it, and the investigator was a mandated reporter, too. They didn't call the police until 3-1/2 days later"

Florida law requires a long list of professionals, including school officials, who "know or have reasonable cause to suspect" that child abuse is occurring, to report it to law enforcement immediately, Moore says. Bobet, Myers and Drudge were arrested because they conducted their own investigation before making their report.

But Shaefer justifies the school officials' actions. "A parent called the principal and said something like 'I think maybe this teacher is playing a weird math game with the students.' There was no sexual activity alleged," says Shaefer, "so the principal pulled the students in and talked to them, then he called in Lissa Bobet, who put Sonia Drudge on the ease."

The parent called on Monday afternoon, Shaefer says. As soon &s the officials realized that alleged sexual activity was involved--late on Wednesday afternoon--they called the Osceola County sheriff, who told them that the matter fell under the jurisdiction of the Kissimmee Police Department, says Shaefer, whom they called first thing Thursday morning.

Moore explains why the three were arrested.

"They [mandated reporters] need to make immediate reports for the child's welfare," says Moore. "It's harmful to the kid to have to keep repeating a story over and over again. It's harmful to the investigation, too, because kids can be influenced by adults and change their stories. This is a criminal offense, and school officials aren't trained to hake investigations. We want the professionals to do it."