Los Angeles School Removes Entire Staff Following Second Allegation Of Sexual Abuse By Teacher

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by Alex Alvarez | 12:47 pm, February 7th, 2012

» 10 comments

South Los Angeles’ Miramonte Elementary School has removed its entire staff — “from janitors to the principal” — following a second allegation of sexual abuse against a teacher at the school. Miramonte will have an entirely new staff as of this week as its current staff undergoes investigation.

Teacher Mark Berndt has been charged with 23 counts of lewd acts on children, including subjecting them to a horrific “taste test,” and Martin Singer, a second grade teacher, has been arrested following allegations that he had fondled two female students.

Parents at the school participated in a march Monday, demanding that their concerns be adequately addressed and that their children be given greater protection. Several have said they will not be re-enrolling their children at Miramonte. Parents of the alleged victims have also said that their children told counselors at the school about the abuse, but that their reports were not taken seriously.

Below is a report on the matter from a local ABC affiliate:

CNN’s Soledad O’Brien has taken a look at the story as well, bringing on two lawyers collectively representing at least ten of the families involved in this case.

Attorney Brian Claypool called the school board’s decision to essentially do away with Miramonte’s entire staff “a band-aid on a very deep wound.”

“They spent twenty years over there fostering an environment that allows pedophiles to prey upon children,” he added. “You can’t fix the problem overnight.”

Los Angeles, Mark Berndt, Martin Singer, Miramonte Elementary, Sex Abuse

Anonymous

Don’t worry pedophiles, the union will assure they are all placed in other schools. For the non-pedophiles, I’d think it’d have to be an extraordinary situation to justify them being pulled from their classrooms and the (appropriate) relationships they’d built with students and other staff. How are the kids supposed to feel about every teacher they know being barred from their school?
sid_id

While I agree that it may be disruptive and places a cloud over the other teachers, I think in the end that this is an extraordinary and horrifying situation and the school did the right thing. When it’s all sorted out though, I think the school and police will have to answer as to why at least one of these teachers was not removed before when allegations surfaced about inappropiate conduct . When it comes to childrens safety, the safety of those children MUST always prevail first.
Anonymous

Who was dumb enough to hire someone with that type of moustache in the first place?!
Anonymous

Pedophiles should be summarily executed.
Anonymous

Kudos…..sometimes you just have to “clean house” and start all over again.
BooBoo Bear

You’re condemning a slew of Catholic Priests with that comment.
Let’s have them go first. Then have all the Bishops that knew about them go second.

And can we actually have these people convicted of a crime before you want them executed?
This sounds so McMartin Schoolish to me.
Anonymous

Hey, Mediaite! When I want to DELETE a comment can you please give us a DELETE option?!
Anonymous

Teachers unions are the boat anchors around the neck of education in this country.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Theresa-Darklady-Reed/581698361 Theresa ‘Darklady’ Reed

What does this have to do with teachers unions? I bet he’s a Christian, too. Maybe we should blame his 20 years of abuse on that? What’s his political party; maybe that’s to blame. Is he a vegetarian? How about married/divorced/single/widowed?

This has a lot more to do with schools ignoring the concerns of children. It was happening when I was in high school 30 years ago and it’s only now that people are finally starting to listen to victimized children.
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