Months after the regional Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) launched a campaign on sexual harassment and assault in schools in the area, they are still reaching out to help more victims and taking steps to help school employees better address these cases.
Flyers about their anonymous survey are put up around Lincoln and Pottawatomie counties, but Jennifer Smothers, a sexual assault advocate with Project: SAFE who heads the SART team in the area, hopes to get more responses. She said the survey is a way for them to better understand what the issues are in schools and start addressing them.
In the meantime, she said the next thing SART is focusing on is giving brochures to school boards on mandatory reporting under Oklahoma state law. Smothers said they’re hoping to better train the boards on what is required by law.
According to state law, if school officials or employees have reason to believe that a student under 18 is a victim of abuse or neglect, they must report it to both DHS and law enforcement. If the victim is 18 or older, they must report it to law enforcement. Anyone who fails to do this can be prosecuted and found guilty of a misdemeanor.
Smothers said her team is finding out that at some schools, employees are reporting it to their superiors, and it stops there. They might call the DHS hotline, but more often than not, it gets screened out if there is a third-party perpetrator involved, meaning the perpetrator doesn’t live in the home with the victim.
“So, if it’s another child that has perpetrated on another child, or an adult, or a neighbor, or an acquaintance, it gets kicked out. So we’re really missing the mark,” Smothers said, adding that a lot of school officials don’t realize that only contacting DHS or their superiors isn’t enough. “We’re missing the mark and these kiddos are falling through the cracks.”
That’s where the brochure comes in. “We’re hoping this brochure says that you shall report to both, and you can be prosecuted for failing to do so. That reporting to your principal, your superintendent, your superior, that doesn’t cut it,” she said.
Smothers also hopes that more schools will allow SART and Project: SAFE to post their flyers on the survey and be more involved in schools overall.
SART is a multidisciplinary team that provides current or previous sexual assault/ abuse/violence victims or survivors with a coordinated, experienced team to navigate the social and legal services systems, according to Project: SAFE.
Several months ago, they launched an anonymous, confidential online survey to gather data on cases. Smothers said they need to first figure out the scope and learn about both current, ongoing violence and past cases.
Once they collect the data, SART can work to find the best ways to address it, whether it’s changing state laws or providing education to Title IX coordinators and administrators at schools. According to federal law, every school from K-12 up to universities should have a Title IX coordinator to investigate sexual violence on campus, whether it’s a secretary, counselor, teacher, or other staff member.
Smothers said they hope to work with these coordinators to provide better training on what their responsibilities are and how they should respond and document.
Better education is the crux of what SART is hoping to do.
“Can we get on campus and start doing educational presentations that help identify what is consent? What does consent not look like? And what does it look like? What is sexual violence? What constitutes as sexual harassment?” Smothers said.
While it is a complicated topic to discuss in schools, the advocate said they could start with discussing things like consent, healthy relationships, and empowering students to stand up for themselves in uncomfortable situations. To understand that they can say no. She said one of her goals with the campaign is for Project: SAFE to go into schools