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Nichols.
Parents, teachers, relatives, neighbors or often “just a concerned person,” Mrs. Williams said. There’s no statute of limitations on child abuse, she added. If it is discovered years after the fact, the law still requires that it be reported by doctors, teachers, school staff members and nurses, the social worker said. “You don’t have to have proof. All you have to have is a suspicion.” The identity of the person reporting the abuse is kept confidential except when court testimony may be required, and someone reporting suspected abuse incurs no liability, even if an investigation proves the suspicion false, Mrs. Williams said.
“What do you want to see here?” the social worker asked the School Board members. “Do you want to see child safety integrated in the regular curriculum? Do you want to hold training sessions for parents?”
“Everybody would be playing ostrich if we said everything is fine in Rappahannock County,” responded chairman Beverly Massie. “But I’m concerned that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. The board and the parents should feel comfortable that our teachers have been trained to know what is abuse and what is not abuse.”
“Personally, I think an on-going program (on all aspects of child safety) is needed, but teachers already have so much required work that isn’t teaching . . . How much more time can we take from the aca: demic curriculum?” the School Board chairman said.
Nancy Reeve asked if drug and alcohol abuse could be part of the child safety program.
That hasn’t been done in Falls Church but substance abuse could certainly be integrated, “with the same focus on decision making,” Mrs. Williams replied.
Any program must recognize the difference between abuse and “alternative life styles,” Mrs. Reeve affirmed. But she added that “kindergarten is not too early ... to teach decision making and that children have the right to make choices ... so there’s not that feeling of helplessness” typically felt by the abused child.
“You can’t tell parents that they can’t physically discipline a child,” Mrs. Williams agreed. “I myself believe that there are times when a swat on the bottom is appropriate . . . That’s why it’s so important to determine the circumstances and to
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