Letter to the Editor: “Do better, QPS”

Recently our community was made publicly aware of a DCFS investigation which stemmed from some number of teachers at Denman Elementary, including Kimberly Kirby and Jennifer Oitker, physical education teachers, spanking students, allowing students to spank them, putting pieces of tape over students’ mouths as a punishment, and employing threats to do so.

The fact this event occurred is appalling enough in and of itself, but the response and lack thereof from Quincy Public School officials has been embarrassingly horrible. The responses provided by Chrissy Cox to Muddy River News sit squarely in the corner of the adult professionals who were touching minor children in a manner that could rightly be considered grooming.

Responsible adults do not contextualize why it was OK for them to touch children.

Who in their right mind would make a fun game out of swatting someone else’s child on the rear end and having those children think it is fun to touch an adult’s rear end? How would you not grasp the concept that this could very easily lead to a child having a more difficult time differentiating between an adult they do not ultimately know very well telling them “it’s just playing” at school versus having a relative or family friend telling them “it’s just playing” at home? When it’s just brushed off as “not a big deal that the kids and parents are just blowing out of proportion and attacking good innocent people over” at school, what kind of message does that send to the number of children who are being victimized by sexual assault in their home lives every day?

This isn’t even a hard concept. The parents who are livid about school staff participating in grooming children and then blowing it off have every right to be. The children who have been made to feel uncomfortable, scared, and embarrassed are experiencing legitimate emotions about things they should have never been made to experience.

Do better, QPS.

Allison Huber
Quincy, Illinois