Educators will become 'Stewards of Children'

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Educators across South Carolina will undergo training on how to prevent, identify and report cases of students being abused by adults at school or elsewhere, officials announced Wednesday.

Roughly 10,000 teachers, administrators, guidance counselors, coaches and school nurses will become ''Stewards of Children'' through an award-winning program developed by Darkness to Light, a Charleston-based national nonprofit that seeks to curtail the number of child sex abuse victims and the crime's impact on their lives.

Anne Lee, the group's chief executive, said South Carolina is the first state nationwide to undertake such a statewide initiative. She said the group is seeking federal money to expand what she hopes becomes the national model.

She hopes the training program ''closes the cookie jar'' for sexual predators in schools. If they know fellow educators are watching and ready to turn them in, they'll get another job, Lee said.

Rex said incidents of inappropriate behavior between students and teachers represent a ''very, very small fraction'' of the state's teachers, but even one example is too many.

''So much of what schools do is based on trust. Not only must kids trust their teachers, but parents have to trust those teachers too,'' he said. ''And schools have to earn that trust each and every day. That's what this initiative is all about.''

Beginning this fall, at least one educator from each of the state's 85 school districts will undergo 6 1/2 hours of training. Those ''stewards of children'' will train at least 20 percent of educators in their district. More than 80 percent of the $162,700 cost of training and materials comes from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The state has 50,000 educators.

Rex said it needed to be a statewide push, because if the agency just allowed schools to opt into the program, those that most need it might not participate. Colleges are also incorporating the training as part of their teacher education programs.

The training will focus not only on sexual predators but on preventing other inappropriate relationships between educators and students. Sometimes young, naive teachers do improper things, with no ill will toward the student, and get into trouble, Rex said.

That could include texting students' cell phones or giving them a ride home, said Mark Bounds, a deputy superintendent for teacher quality.

Last fall, a nationwide Associated Press investigation found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were revoked, denied, surrendered or sanctioned from 2001 through 2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct, from bizarre to sadistic; 99 of them were from South Carolina, according to teacher discipline records.