Flanked by representatives from the Summit County Sheriff’s Office and Park City Police Department, Summit County Attorney Margaret Olson at a press conference Monday offered her reasoning for charging the Park City School District with failing to report child abuse.
“Once it became apparent that this was a systemic and institutional failure, I felt that there was a high probability that there were other individuals, other trusted adults, who had reported only to the school and that the school had not properly reported that, pursuant to law," Olson said. "And so this is being done at this time so that we can locate those cases that we may have missed and make sure that they're properly investigated and addressed.”
In a subsequent interview, Olson said she knows there are more cases of alleged child abuse within the Park City School District that have not been reported to authorities.
District officials did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement released earlier Monday, the Park City Board of Education said it takes the allegations seriously and is looking into them.
The Summit County Attorney’s Office charged the district with three misdemeanor counts of failure to report child abuse. The charges stem from three separate alleged incidents: two rape allegations from students and one allegation that a district employee touched a student’s genitals.
None of the alleged incidents, according to the charges, were reported to law enforcement or Child Protective Services as required by law.
State law says individuals, including school personnel, shall immediately report to law enforcement or the Division of Child and Family Services if they have reason to believe a child has been the subject of abuse or neglect.
Olson said investigators learned of two of those incidents on Friday. Despite an ongoing investigation into the district’s handling of similar cases, Olson said, district officials had not reported the allegations to law enforcement.
“Another one came in last week," she said. "That was in real time. You know, there have been investigative subpoenas out for weeks. And I was very troubled that the school district, knowing there was a pending investigation, still failed to report a case last week.”
Olson said investigations into the district are ongoing and could result in charges against individual people. So far, only the district has been charged. It faces a potential $3,000 fine.
The mandatory reporting laws can trigger an investigation involving multiple departments whose agents are specially trained to deal with similar situations. Olson, whose office oversees the Summit County Children’s Justice Center, said those investigations are evidence-based and comprehensive, and lead to appropriate responses for those involved.
But without reporting the incidents to the proper authorities, Olson said, those investigations are not launched. The charging documents do not detail the sort of investigations the district may have conducted into the alleged incidents.
Olson suggested the failure to report was not an oversight.
“I think that there was an intentional disregard of the legal duty to report to law enforcement or Child Protective Services," Olson said.
Olson asked parents who have reported incidents of child abuse to Park City schools in the past to report those incidents again, but this time to Summit County dispatch or the state’s Child Protective Services.
