Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Kosciusko County in 1996 ranked third in the state for the number of child abuse cases per capita, and last year ranked fourth.
The effect of child abuse and neglect on the entire community was the emphasis of Monday's benefit luncheon of the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Kosciusko County.
Moderator Steve Grill said approximately one percent of the more than 20,000 kids under age 18 in Kosciusko County are abused. In Indiana in 1997, 46 children, almost one per week, died of abuse or neglect.
According to statistics compiled by Prevent Child Abuse, Indiana, in 1996 there were 226 cases of abuse reported in Kosciusko County and 251 cases of neglect. In 1997 there were 185 cases of abuse reported and 210 cases of neglect.
Superintendents from the five school districts in the county discussed the impact of child abuse on education Monday at the luncheon and described schools' efforts to deal with an alarming trend.
As Rex Roth, Triton superintendent, said, "Kids that are abused at home come to school and they bring those problems with them."
Lee Harman, Warsaw superintendent, said schools are seeing an increase in emotional abuse.
"If a student is involved in a domestic violence situation, it's hard at the elementary level to sit in class and learn to read and write when you're worrying about whether your mom will be alive when you get home," he said. "We're worrying about test scores and that sort of thing, and they're worried about survival."
Roth said Triton schools report about one student per month as being abused; some of these cases are repeats.
Karen Boling, Tippecanoe Valley superintendent, said the most disturbing aspect of the child abuse issue is "the number of cases that we don't know about."
School professionals believe that only about one percent of child abuse cases in schools are reported, Boling said.
"Students who are abused or neglected are not prepared to learn when they come to school," she said. "They need their social and emotional problems dealt with before they can get started in school."
Roth said schools offer services and counselors to try to get abused kids the help they need. "We make an effort in the schools to accommodate these children," Roth said.
But, he said, "When you provide for needs from a social aspect, there's less you can do from the academic aspect."
Harman agreed. "The time and energy we need to deal with this takes away from our mission," he said. "The community probably doesn't realize the depth of the trauma the kids walk around with all day long."
The abuse affects all students, not just the ones who are the subjects of the abuse or neglect, Harman said.
"We have to look at how these kids come to school," he said. "There's much misplaced anger that is directed to all sorts of people - the bus driver, the teacher, other students, pretty much everyone the student comes in contact with."
All the superintendents stressed coordinating school services, community awareness and social agencies as vital to dealing with and reducing child abuse.
Some occurrences are ongoing for as many as five to eight years before they're identified as child abuse, said William Worl, Whitko superintendent.
Worl and Roth said the schools need feedback on what happens to the abuse cases they report to authorities, such as the welfare department.
"The counselors can deal with the kids better if they know about the investigation and the problems in kids' lives," Worl said.
Mark Stock, Wawasee superintendent, said school corporations need to formally reach out to social service agencies and churches to get the kind of help with students that schools can't provide.
Parenting classes help, Roth said: "A lot of these parents don't want to be bad parents - they just don't know how to be nurturing parents."
However, Harman said, when parenting classes are offered, "it's very, very difficult to get parents in who need the help. Nine times out of 10 it's parents doing a good job who want to be better."
Boling reminded those present that child abuse and neglect are not confined to any one income or educational level of the parents.
"We're seeing an increase of parents who say, 'I just can't do it,'" she said.
Harman said school corporations get very little help from the state with resources to deal with child abuse and neglect, and urged the public to contact state representatives for help from the General Assembly.
We need to help kids now so we can break the cycle of abuse, Worl said.
"In some cases we lose youngsters," he said. "Talented, vibrant young people are lost to society, and that's the single greatest tragedy."
