Mandated Reporter Story

A magistrate judge found a former director of a childcare center in Lynchburg, Virginia guilty of failing to report a staff member’s abuse of children at the center. What makes this an unusual story is that the police also charged three Board members with the same crime. The judge found those members innocent, but once again the process no doubt carried its own level of punishment.

It’s difficult to figure out what police think the director and Board members knew about the alleged incidents. According to earlier reporting, police said the staff member grabbed one child by the neck while forcing the child to clean up a mess. The police also alleged that she grabbed another by the ankles, resulting in the child’s hitting her head on a piece of furniture. The news reports indicate there were no cameras at the center, so the reports to the police likely came from eyewitness accounts. It makes sense that those eyewitnesses also might have reported the incidents to the director at some point.

However, there’s no clear path from eyewitnesses to the Board members. In my experience as a Board member of nonprofit institutions, the Board is not involved in the day-to-day operations. In fact, it’s generally best practice for Board members to avoid management duties. It’s not even clear to me that Board members are “persons employed by a school” under the Virginia mandated reporting law. However, it’s been a long while since I’ve practiced law in Virginia, so I may be missing something.

The moral of this particular story is that once the police start charging people for abusing children, they quickly move on to charging people for failing to report suspicions of that abuse. They will draw a wide net and let the courts sort it out. The only way to avoid that grueling process is to train people well and err on the side of disclosure. Be sure that your organization has a strong training program and comprehensive policies that meet your state’s mandated reporter laws.