This time it's both the crime and the cover-up

When should a news story out of Portland have relevance to the readers of the Cheney Free Press?

Probably not much of the time is the short answer.

But in this instance, let’s hope it is NEVER!

What got my attention, and made my blood pressure probably elevated to unhealthy levels, were recent stories in the Portland Oregonian about Norman Scott and the Portland School District.

Scott, a retired teacher, was one of those bad apples that ruin the rest. He was found guilty recently in Clackamas County Circuit Court for sexually abusing six girls in an Oregon City middle school — in one day no less — in 2015.

But Scott, it appears, has a history of odd behavior throughout portions of his 36-year career as a teacher. He once wore a condom on his head and dressed oddly while teaching in a sex-ed class at Grant High School in Portland, the session captured on a student’s video and uploaded to YouTube for the world to see.

He was reprimanded and the school district told him “To never teach that way again.” Duh!

Thankfully these instances are extremely rare, but perhaps the most nauseating part of this whole tale came days earlier when The Oregonian reported on how Portland Public Schools paid a law firm $11,000 to keep secret a collection of records detailing its mishandling of sexual misconduct complaints against a different teacher.

The description of the abhorrent details surrounding that case need not waste words.

The famous words uttered after the Watergate break-ins decades ago told us, “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.” In this case, however, it’s both the crime and the cover-up that share equal billing.

The hush money paid to the law firm Miller Nash Graham & Dunn ensured that the public would never see the “extensive and troubling record of misconduct” that PSD officials knew about all along.

The plaintiff was outraged when she found out details of the abuse she suffered were kept sealed and, “That instead of being transparent to the taxpayers, they instead chose to waste money in an attempt to hide the truth.”

It took the threat of a news story from The Oregonian for the district to fess up.

Such attempts to hide the truth are certainly not only found 350 miles away.

One only needs to travel 30 miles to where the Central Valley School District appeared to keep the behavior of former middle school teacher Anthony Cucinotti under wraps and captured in the file cabinets of the personnel office for years.

One student paid a price no amount of money can fix. Yet administrator after administrator tried to solve the problem with a paper trail of slaps on the wrist.

News accounts show the complaints against Cucinotti began a year after he had been hired in the district in 1992. Co-workers, students and parents spoke about violent outbursts and inappropriate behavior with female students. 

Court records show complaint after complaint — eight in all — with numerous verbal and written reprimands during his time with the district. He was instructed to complete sexual harassment training and anger management classes, too.

But all of the stuff in his file could not keep Cucinotti from allegedly raping a sixth grade student, the thought of which makes me sick beyond imagination.

Cucinotti, who resigned his position in 2009, surrendered his teaching certificate and now lives in California.

In the end, what CV schools paid out in a 2016 settlement to Cucinotti’s victim — $2.5 million —makes Portland Schools “hush money” mere couch-cushion change.

I wonder if CV taxpayers will remember this the next time there are pleas for levy and bond support “For the Kids?” This problem should have been solved by someone who was not afraid to fire a predator years earlier — not just sweep it under the rug.

We put huge trust in our school leaders and the people they hire to care for and protect the most precious resource on the planet, our children.

Please never put that faith in question like others have and make us have to write this kind of story.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.