# 7 CCSD Enforces "Wall of Silence" on Sexual and Other Abuse

Any employee of the Charleston County School District who criticizes the district will lose his or her job. That's why you never hear from current teachers or administrators when problems occur. Only those who sing the praises of the district may speak, or write Letters to the Editor, despite common knowledge of miscreants. 

One case in point now faces several lawsuits. CCSD's failure to act on employee Marvin Gethers's behavior will most likely cost the district even more than the $300,000 it paid out surreptitiously to one family at Dunston Elementary last fall. The district's failure to take serious action was only intensified by the failure of the North Charleston Police Department to investigate Gethers's computer in a timely fashion. In other words, when child pornography was discovered on that computer by an IT specialist from the district, a wall of silence descended. After a slap on the wrist, Gethers went on to work in an elementary school, receive a district award as a valuable employee, and get a promotion. 

And no one spoke up.

After nearly two years, CCSD fired him the day after he was arrested. Meanwhile, he had access to vulnerable children on a daily basis. 

Afterward, the district dragged its feet for months on a FOIA request by Channel 5 News. Despite the ranks of administrators at the Taj Mahal, such requests routinely get the "delay, linger, and wait" approach and/or outrageous fees for what should be public information.

Then we learned of a sex-crazed teacher in the district. A 17-year-old Burke student was harassed for sex by his female math teacher for months, both in the classroom and out, with the case still dragging on last September. 

No one knew? Really? It beggars belief.

How about the Stall High School chorus director arrested in November for "sexual battery" of a former student? Anything else happen while he was employed over six years? Someone knows.

To round out the issue, the inaction of Liberty Hill's principal when a white student was assaulted at least five times by black students is downright bizarre. Would Chris Haynes have taken action if a black student was harassed by whites? Somehow tapes of reported incidents vanished, as another lawsuit alleges. Haynes kept his job.

Well, so did Marvin Gethers.