School Rocked by Sex Abuse Scandal Closes as Third Teacher Implicated

A third teacher has been implicated in the sex scandal that just keeps on going at Miramonte Elementary School in Los Angeles County.  Two teachers have already been arrested on charges of lewd conduct with children.  Mark Berdnt is accused of 23 lewd acts on minors, including blindfolding his students and feeding them his own semen while photographing each encounter.  Martin Bernard Springer was also a Miramonte teacher was arrested earlier in the week for lewd conduct with minors as well.  Now it seem a third teacher was involved in these disturbing acts.  Although the name has not been released, a representative for 5 of the victims says this third teacher was female who shared a door with Berdnt’s classroom.  This teacher allegedly funneled students from her classroom to Berdnt’s classroom, and investigators are currently looking into whether she did the same for Springer.  They are also exploring a link between Springer and Berdnt – they may have been very close friends and aided each other in their misconduct.

Miramonte Elementary is currently closed until Thursday.  Los Angeles School Superintendent John Deasy has announced that the entire staff at the school will be replaced from the top down in order to avoid “any more surprises” and re-build trust among parents.

All well in good, but this problem goes deeper than just a few bad apples.  Current union rules make it nearly impossible to fire bad teachers.  Both of the accused men have been racking up complaints of sexual misconduct against their own students for decades, but each one was brushed under the rug and students were transferred rather than fire the teacher. On top of that, California law makes each of these wackos eligible to receive their full pensions until the day they die, regardless of any criminal convictions – even if those convictions are for molesting or raping their own students. This problem goes deeper than one school. Its time to be honest about what the unions have wrought on our children.

crossposted at kiradavis.net