Susan Martin, the principal of St. John LaLande Catholic School in Blue Springs, has been suspended while the state investigates allegations reported to the Missouri Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline and the Children’s Division of the Missouri Department of Social Services.
A parent who made one of three such reports said the allegations did not involve either physical or sexual abuse by Martin herself, but ongoing, serious physical bullying that had gone unaddressed by school administrators all year.
This parent, whose sixth grader will start attending a different school when spring break ends on Tuesday, said she finally filed a complaint with the state because “I don’t think they’re keeping children safe, and I don’t think she’s taken the steps the state advises. Our plan was to stay with our faith family, but that’s not what we get to do.”
She did not want to be named, though the school obviously knows who she is, “because I know the power of the Catholic Church” to retaliate against those who report any wrongdoing.
Martin is not solely to blame, she said. “The priest, I’ve had 11 phone calls in to him and he’s never called me back. Susan says, ‘Father’s too busy for this stuff.’’’
That’s Father Sean McCaffery, pastor of St. John’s, who announced Martin’s suspension in a letter to parish families just before Easter. “I write to inform you of recent developments concerning our school administration,” he wrote.
“On Monday,” March 25, McCaffery’s letter said, “a report was filed with the Division of Children and Families, prompting an investigation. As a precautionary measure, our principal, Mrs. Susan Martin, has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of this investigation. Please rest assured that the safety and well-being of our students remains our utmost priority and we are committed to fully cooperating with the investigative process.”
Meanwhile, the letter said, “Mr. Joe Monachino will be assisting in the administrative duties.” Monachino retired from his position as principal of Pius X High School last year. “As we navigate through this situation, I will keep you updated on developments that I am authorized to share. In the event of an extended absence, I will keep you updated on our school leadership arrangements.”
Neither Martin nor McCaffery responded to a message seeking comment about the investigation.
‘They wrote it up as an accident’
Last summer, I wrote about the school’s expulsion of a student over disagreements between the new pastor, McCaffery, and that child’s parents.
Patrick R. Miller, in-house counsel for the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, said in a Friday interview that he couldn’t say much more than the letter from McCaffery said, other than to reiterate that “child safety is the priority.”
“We welcome the investigation,” he said, and “have to trust the state’s going to do a good job.”
This is Martin’s third year at St. John’s. Previously, she was principal at St. Gregory Barbarigo Catholic School in Maryville, Missouri.
The same parent who made one of the complaints to the state told me that three other families — not the same three who reported Martin to CPS — had left the school this year over similar problems.
Her son was bullied for the first time in September, she said, when two other boys threw him into a bookshelf in a classroom where no teacher was present. He split his head open and was bleeding, she said, but “they wrote it up as an accident,” after one of the boys who was responsible reported it to the school nurse and said he didn’t know how it had happened.
It was other students who had seen that it was not an accident and told their parents about it who let the boy’s mother know what had really happened.
Her son, she said, had been threatened to keep quiet about that and a series of other attacks since then, including once when he came home with a black and blue rib cage.
‘They beat me up’ at St. John LaLande
“Susan knows all this. She says, ‘We can’t prove it. It’s just hearsay.’’’ On another occasion, the woman said, the same boys threatened to beat her son if he didn’t look up a video featuring celebrity rapper Drake’s penis, which he then did.
The final straw, she said, was when her son told her, “I don’t want to go back in that building” and “I don’t like who I am any more. I’m doing things I shouldn’t do and they beat me up if I don’t.” He had also been looking up “funny” suicide memes in response to the situation, and of course that scared her.
Another student was being repeatedly shoved into a locker, she said, and a third had a bathroom door kicked in on him.
“Nothing was being done” in response to any of these problems, she said. “In my job, I’m a mandatory reporter myself, so if the Catholic Church isn’t going to do anything about it …”
She didn’t finish the sentence, and now her son won’t finish the year at St. John’s.
“He’s relieved.” But she’s sad and upset that it came to this, as any parent would be. “We used to have a wonderful school.”
All I will add is that keeping kids safe is not just a matter of pledging to care, or having the right policies on paper.
Bullies of any age are sneaky, or they wouldn’t get away with their transgressions. But it’s not 1950 anymore, and no school official anywhere, in a collar or not, can afford to ignore how deadly serious an issue bullying can be.
