Listen Live
Fantastic Voyage Generic Graphics Updated Nov 2023
Black America Web Featured Video
CLOSE

As a father of a teenage daughter, I was particularly alarmed to learn that a 9-year-old girl was sexually abused during a lunch break in a Harlem school – and the crime went unpunished because the principal never called the police or investigated the allegations.

The girl’s mother told The New York Daily News that her third-grade daughter was sexually assaulted by her fellow classmates on school property and school officials did nothing to stop it.

According to the Daily News, the ringleader described as a “sexual deviant” reached under the victim’s skirt while they were sitting on a rug during reading period.

“She said, ‘Mom, (the assailant) touched me between my legs,’” the girl’s mother recalled in an interview at her lawyer’s office. “Her face was completely red, her eyes were swollen.”

About a month later, in October, another boy exposed himself and rubbed against the girl’s buttocks, the mother and a medical assistant told The Daily News.

The girl’s mother told the newspaper that she approached Charyn Koppelson, the principal of Public School 194, and Koppelson said she was unaware of the incident and didn’t file a report or punish the students.

Either Koppelson is not telling the truth or she’s totally out of touch with serious sex crimes that are occurring in the classrooms of her Harlem school. The victim’s mother said Koppelson casually dismissed her pleas for an investigation.

“She said, ‘He’s just a kid,’ ” the mother recalled.  “(The incidents) were never placed in the system at all.”

So why do some of our black educators turn a blind eye to horrific crimes against our young girls? And why do black boys feel it’s normal to sexually abuse our daughters?

Each week, it seems, I’m hearing more reports of black boys raping or sexually abusing young girls.

It has to stop.

It’s the parent’s responsibility to talk to their sons about how to treat women – all women. Teachers can’t be expected to teach boys and raise them, too. Parents must teach black boys that sexually abusing girls is wrong – and I would think parents would drill this notion into the minds of their sons. But some don’t.

Meanwhile, the girl’s mother is planning to sue the New York Education Department for not acting to stop the inappropriate behavior, which happened during the 2009-10 school year.

And here’s something more troubling: According to the Daily News, this wasn’t the first time that Koppelson failed to alert authorities about alarming events.

“Koppelson was disciplined in 2011 for not filing a report when Emergency Medical Services was called for a student,” the Daily News reported.

“She also received a letter of reprimand for failing to notify her supervisors about an arrest in 2008 for driving while intoxicated. The 25-year department veteran was removed from the school in January 2012 and assigned to an administrator rotation pool. She earns $105,975 a year.”

I don’t know why Koppelson failed to report the sexual abuse crime against an innocent 9-year-old girl. I only know that Koppelson did not protect the third-grader by allowing repeated sexual violations in her school and not investigating a mother’s claims.

“He’s just a kid,” Koppelson told the young victim’s mother about the alleged sex offender.

Here’s the problem: Kids sexually abuse girls. It’s a fact. And since Koppelson can’t seem to wrap her mind around that concept, she should be removed as principal of Public School 194.

Immediately.