An elementary general music teacher in Mongomery County, Md., stands accused of child molestation, W-JLA News (ABC affiliate) reports.
Joynes (Photo: Baltimore
County Detention)
Investigators say Lawrence (Larry) Joynes, 55, of Dundalk, molested at least 15 children in his classroom over two decades. He had taught music in Montgomery County’s public schools for 27 years, most recently at New Hampshire Estates Elementary School in Silver Spring, the news station reported.
If he’s convicted of the 14 counts for which he’s accused in Montgomery County, he faces a sentence of about 300 years in prison. Officials in Baltimore County reached a plea deal with Mr Joynes on other charges in order to expedite the processing of charges in Montgomery County, which carry a stiffer sentence.
The Baltimore County charges involved possession of child pornography, which Mr Joynes admitted filming of his students aged 7 to 10 years. See a brief report in the Baltimore Sun, here.
Because he reportedly faked his own death once to avoid being confronted by one of his accusers, he was ordered held without bond on Feb 7 in connection with the child molestation charges, the Washington Post reported.
School officials may have neglected their reporting duties
Whether Mr Joynes is guilty or innocent of molesting children at the elementary school in Silver Spring, court documents allege that school officials didn’t do enough to keep him away from children, even after they should have reasonably suspected him of child molestation.
Mr Joynes worked at 11 Montgomery County schools and began working at New Hampshire Estates in 2003. In September 2010, one mother reportedly told the principal at the school that Mr Joynes had asked her second-grade daughter to “crawl into his lap,” W-JLA reported. Other reports were also brought to the attention of school staff, court documents allege.
Administrators noted the complaints and directed Mr Joynes to avoid any sort of student touching, to stay off the playground during recess, and to make a few other modifications to behavior that would be typical for an elementary teacher.
But school officials never notified police or parents, W-JLA said.
“I was one of the moms who came to complain,” Stephanie Herrera, a parent of a New Hampshire Estates second grader, was quoted as saying. “There was something that was not right about him, just seeing him. … The principal never did nothing. ‘Oh he’s weird, he’s weird,’ they’d say, and that was it,” she said.
The article on Family Law, §5–701 of the Annotated Code of Maryland, provides that educators must immediately report “a finding that there is credible evidence, which has not been satisfactorily refuted, that abuse, neglect, or sexual abuse did occur.”
I would call the word of an 8-year-old “credible evidence.” I wouldn’t even blink an eye before I called police and child services. But Maryland’s courts may reach a different conclusion based on evidence not yet reported in the newspaper.
A few sections after the above definitions in Maryland law, §5-704 states that “each … educator, … acting in a professional capacity in this State: (1) who has reason to believe that a child has been subjected to abuse or neglect, shall notify the local department or the appropriate law enforcement agency; and (2) shall immediately notify and give all information [including the name of the child, the nature and extent of the abuse or neglect of the child, including any evidence or information available … concerning possible previous instances of abuse or neglect] to the head of the institution or the designee of the head.”
Pretty clear. However, most cases of educators failing to report suspected abuse have been matters of education, not prosecution. Better to train educators how to recognize and report suspected abuse than to punish them for not recognizing it in what may have been a dicey situation.
Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Joshua Starr has used this case to remind principals to contact Montgomery County Police and Child Protective Services upon reports of questionable staff behavior, according to a statement released to W-JLA. He also ordered enhanced training and a comprehensive review of school district operating procedure.
“This case has led to changes in the way we monitor and track allegations of employee misconduct,” the school district said in a written statement. “This includes allegations that may not rise to the level of requiring a police investigation or termination, but raise a reasonable question about a staff member’s behavior that should be monitored.”
Other states
A brief summary of the reporting laws in each state is available from the federal government’s Health and Human Services website, here.
We recently reported that a new law will go into effect in Illinois on July 1, stemming from a case in which a male music teacher abused two female students at a high school in Aurora, a western suburb of Chicago. The new law mandates that school employees receive training in their reporting requirements under Illinois law during the first year of employment at a school and every five years thereafter.