Editorial: Charter school sex case is shrouded in secrecy

The people running Bataan Military Academy seem to forget that it is a public school using taxpayer dollars to keep it in operation.

The school, chartered through the Albuquerque Public Schools district, has reached a settlement with the family of a boy who says he was sexually assaulted during a school-operated training camp.

Details are scarce in court documents and the amount of the settlement has not been made public. Neither the school nor the family is talking, and some documents have been sealed by a judge.

The boy’s family made the civil claim against the school, the U.S. Navy Sea Cadet Corps and an officer. It’s not clear why the officer was named, or whether the boy alleges he was assaulted by school staff, another student or an unrelated party. The corps is a Navy-related training program that works with the school.

The lawsuit was brought against the school individually, and APS is not liable for paying the settlement.

Even though there are more questions than answers, the case involves claims of abuse of a student made against a public school, so it is in the public’s interest for critical information, including the settlement amount, to be in the public domain.

There are ways to protect the sexual assault victim’s identity and still inform the public about how its money is being spent, how publicly funded schools operate and whether police and prosecutors were notified if the facts warranted a referral to law enforcement.

As other large organizations have found out the hard way, institutional secrecy is a wrongheaded policy in the case of child sexual abuse.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.