Osceola
Kissimmee,#2Author of original report
Fri, May 23, 2003
The school failed to report a complaint by a 5th grader back in March. They say she recanted her story. Here is why she recanted it. We teach our children to speak out and tell adults if something like this happens. This child did and she was victimized again. ------- Student recanted under pressure By Willoughby Mariano and Susan Jacobson Sentinel Staff Writers May 23, 2003 KISSIMMEE -- The first of six students known to have accused a Kissimmee Elementary School teacher of improper touching said she recanted her allegation because school officials "kept telling her that she was lying," according to an arrest affidavit obtained Thursday. The fifth-grade girl told school administrators in March that Matthew Rossillo reached up her skirt and touched the back of her thigh when he hugged her in December. She told police investigators last week that she changed her story because she "just wanted people to stop bothering her," according to the affidavit. The episode resulted in Rossillo receiving a letter warning him not to hug students and to avoid being alone with them. "There was a question as to whether she was telling the truth or not," school-district spokeswoman Dana Schafer said. She said she could not elaborate because of confidentiality requirements. Rossillo, 25, was being held without bail in the Osceola County Jail on lewd or lascivious molestation and child-abuse charges after his arrest Wednesday. Five 8- and 9-year-old girls said he molested them inside his second-grade classroom. In what experts describe as a rare move, police also arrested Kissimmee Elementary Principal Kenneth Meyers, 54; human-resources director Lissa Bobet, 37; and district investigator Sonia Drudge, 39. They were accused of misdemeanor counts of failing to report known or suspected child abuse. They were released Wednesday on their own recognizance. District officials reported the allegations to Kissimmee police May 15 -- three days after Meyers, Bobet and Drudge launched their own hush-hush investigation rather than immediately turn the matter over to authorities. Regarding the fifth-grader, Schafer said she could not go into detail about the girl's allegation. But she said the girl's parent was involved with the investigation and was satisfied with the outcome. There was no record that district officials contacted police about the December incident, said Sgt. Ralph Moore, a police spokesman. Police are investigating the fifth-grader's allegation. The incidents involving the younger children happened in Room 212, where Rossillo taught second grade, according to the arrest affidavit. They were Rossillo's students. Typically, he took the girls aside one at a time as they were waiting to be picked up from school and asked them to play the "finger game," the affidavit states. As Rossillo sat at his desk, they stood beside him with their backs turned, eyes closed and hands behind them. He told them to count the number of fingers he put in their hands. Instead, Rossillo tricked them into fondling him, police said, by placing his genitals into their hands. Some of the children told investigators they heard the sound of a zipper or saw him zipping his pants after the game. School Board attorney Usher "Larry" Brown said Wednesday that a parent complained May 12 about a teacher's bizarre math-teaching methods but that it was not clear molestation had taken place. But on that day, a student told Meyers she had come in contact with the teacher's genitals, according to Meyers' arrest affidavit. In an interview with police, Rossillo admitted to playing a "finger game" with kids at Kissimmee Elementary but denied molesting them. The allegations come as Osceola school-district officials have been working on a plan to have a "rapid-response advocate" at each school with the expertise to handle child-abuse complaints. Next school year, principals will assign one person to handle suspected child-abuse cases in addition to their other duties, said Radine Himes, project director at the Osceola Children's Advocacy Center. The advocates will be responsible for notifying law enforcement, with the school-resource officer as the primary contact. The officer or the rapid-response advocate will call the state Department of Children & Families. "In the fall, this would have been a non-issue," Himes said of the arrests of the principal and district employees. Currently, although teachers and school administrators are required to report abuse, not all receive training arranged by Osceola school officials. Meyers had just received training April 16 -- between allegations involving Rossillo. According to Meyers' arrest affidavit, the principal attended a session for administrators conducted by the Children's Advocacy Center. The purpose was to educate them on a "coordinated approach to reports of child abuse with local law-enforcement agencies." The district offers extra cash to employees who voluntarily take training on the subject, but only new teachers who did not graduate from an accredited college of education must take a two-hour training course. The district has "no formal written policy" on how to handle child-abuse cases but follows the law, Schafer said. District officials sent notes to Kissimmee Elementary parents detailing Wednesday's events but provided no additional counselors or school psychologists, Schafer said. There are no current plans to meet with parents. Circuit Judge Roger J. McDonald ruled Thursday that there was probable cause that Rossillo may have committed a crime and denied him bail. Rossillo was placed in protective custody, which is common with inmates accused of sex crimes, county spokeswoman Twis Hoangsaid. Though Rossillo was immediately removed from the classroom after the May 12 complaint, police said district officials broke the law by failing to call authorities immediately. By state law, teachers and other school officials are required to call the state child-abuse hotline if there is "reasonable cause" to suspect that abuse has taken place. DCF officials then are required to call the appropriate law-enforcement agency. Doctors, nurses, day-care workers, police and judges are among those who also fall under the requirement. Prosecutors plan to review the case to decide whether to prosecute, said Randy Means, executive director of the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office. The process could take several weeks. "There appears to be at least a suspicion of foul play that they should have acted on," Means said. "The law is explicit that they must call the abuse hotline immediately if they have suspicions. The intent was to make sure that law enforcement was notified." A DCF spokesman also said someone should have called the hotline, which the agency runs. "We should have been involved," spokesman Owen Roach said. "And we would have been involved if the procedure had been followed." Willoughby Mariano can be reached at [email protected] or 407-931-5944. Susan Jacobson can be reached at 407-931-5946 or [email protected]. http://www.orlandosentinal.com/news/local/osceola/orl-locteacher23052303may23,0,2510003.story?coll=orl%2Dnews%2Dheadlines%2Dosceola