Some legislators said our legislation to fix loopholes that allow people like the Cavalier* to go from district to district undetected was “too hard” to work through.
I was completely dumbfounded, then disgusted, and then enraged. “Too hard” to work through? A problem this glaring and story after story this awful and this was too hard? Legislators are hired to work through complicated policy issues - a job that they ask thousands of voters to give them - and it’s too hard?
What if one day your boss asked you to do something and you just said, “No - sorry. This is just too hard.” How would that go for you?
These legislators had work session after work session on this legislation. In the midst of the last work session, they just moved on without taking any further action. The version of the legislation we were left with was so full of errors that it would have actually made it much harder for superintendents to investigate misconduct.
This meant that we had to work on it even more than we had been. It meant that there was a chance that the disaster legislators left us with could be enacted if we weren’t very careful. It also meant that I had to continue to engage with people who were actively hostile about the legislation and clearly thought I was just some dumb mom.
So, let’s talk about what is actually hard here.
*Cavalier is one meaning of this person’s name, so that is what we call him here.
When Maine RSU 21 refused to engage with Lewiston Public Schools about this guy's track record, LPS asked for my supervisor's information from the summer job I had 20 years ago in college where the Cavalier sexually harassed me. They hired an external investigator who interviewed me about what I experienced.
On Friday, October 31, a friend from RSU 21 sent me a screenshot of the LPS HR Director emailing her to ask her if she (the friend) had received FOAA’d material from RSU 21. LPS's HR Director noted in the email that LPS had not received the information from their FOAA request of RSU 21. On Monday, November 3, LPS's Superintendent informed me they were allowing the Cavalier to return to my daughter's school.
I had over 25 medical tests during this two month period only to have my doctor say, "There is nothing abnormal about your tests. I think it's the extreme stress and trauma of what is happening at your daughter's school."
This man was in charge of sex education at my daughter's school. This did not seem like a problem to school administration.
*Cavalier is one meaning of this person's name, so that is what we call him here.
*Cavalier is one meaning of this person's name, so that is what we call him here.
She wasn't thinking of any man in particular, "just men generally."