Thankfully, incidents like this are rare: schools hire hundreds of temp employees and volunteers, and most of them are truly helpful for students. But occasionally, it goes bad.
Shawn Nowlin (Harford County Sheriff’s photo, Dec. 5, 2012)
That’s the case with Shawn Edward Nowlin, 27, who has been charged with impregnating a 15-year-old student entrusted to his care by the girl’s mother after he allegedly identified himself as a child therapist or doctor who could help her with behavioral difficulties.
From what the Baltimore Sun can determine, regardless of how he might have represented himself to various people, it appears he was actually a hall monitor. Hazelwood Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore City also appears to have hired him to coordinate some sort of community outreach program at an annual salary of more than $25,000.
The pregnant girl was never a student at Hazelwood, and he was actually charged with second-degree rape, sex abuse of a minor, and second-degree assault in Harford County, where her mother lives.
“I’m just sick,” the Sun quoted one parent of a boy, who had been seeing Mr Nowlin as a therapist for the last year, as saying. “My son needed serious help, and I turned him over to this man because the school told me that I could. I was so proud I was able to send him to a doctor, and they let me turn my baby over to a hall monitor.”
Pathologically padding one’s résumé
This wouldn’t be the first time someone lied about their credentials. It’s not even the first time Baltimore City School employees lied about theirs to the school this year; it’s the third time that has happened.
The school district held a meeting at Hazelwood Thursday, which turned into a rather contentious affair. The school, of course, can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, and parents don’t feel comfortable moving forward until they get some answers as to how this actually was allowed to happen.
The Sun reporter said the story had revealed “serious lapses in the school system’s identity and credential verification process.” That language is rather severe, and we need to put it in a more helpful tone.
But at the same time, the CEO of Baltimore City Schools needs to go on record about this case. This needs to happen now. I don’t know if three high-profile cases is “a lot,” but when it comes to kids, even one instance of school officials not checking credentials is too much.
In the case of the pregnant girl, if Mr Nowlin is found guilty, checking his credentials would not have made a difference: his meeting and the alleged sex occurred outside Baltimore City and outside of his employment at Hazelwood.
Baltimore City Schools, however, still promoted him to positions of trust at Hazelwood because he said he had credentials as a child therapist or similar professional. Licensing authorities in the state have no record of him ever being licensed. He also said he held a doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University. They say nobody by his name graduated from there within the last two years.
I can’t say I never padded my own résumé, making some of the projects I’ve completed seem more important than they really were. But what we have here is a guy, probably a nice guy, who butted in to work with children when other more qualified people were passed over. This is not serving the students he seems to care about, and it’s causing a headache for schools.
What can we do?
Should schools check people’s professional credentials before giving them a job? Sure. But many non-teaching positions, especially those that pay in the $20,000s, require someone who likes kids and can encourage them to develop healthy approaches to life. These folks are not easy to find and employ.
I don’t believe we should insist that schools revisit this issue and spend lots of money to investigate the job histories of people who seem to be helping students. One bad apple shouldn’t spoil the whole bunch. However, degrees are pretty easy to check, and doing so, when the position requires a certain degree, shouldn’t create too much work for school staff.
What I do believe, though, is that principals should keep better track of their temporary employees. Get to know them, and understand why they want to work in the school. As a manager, you could end up helping more than the temporary employee. If he takes what you teach him and passes it on to your students, that’s what it’s all about.
If school officials had gotten to know Mr Nowlin a little, they would have discovered that he was posting on social media information about his professional credentials as a therapist. This would have led to questions, more extensive checking, and a personnel decision as to what should be done.
I realize parents are deservedly angry right now. Hazelwood’s staff definitely missed all the clues on this one, and they should have taken steps to protect themselves from any pathological liars in their midst. Dr Andrés Alonso, the schools’ CEO, should tell us as soon as possible what steps will be taken in the future that should have been taken in the past.
Principals, on the other hand, as the ultimate hiring managers, are used to working with kids, whose pathology is a little purer and easier to detect. Adult pathological liars require a professional inquisitor to detect, and principals have more important skills to develop.