With the help of local law enforcement, Summit County Attorney Margaret Olson will train Park City School District employees about how to properly report suspected child abuse in the wake of her office filing criminal charges that allege the district failed in its legal duty to disclose allegations of sexual abuse involving students.
Olson and Mark Moffat, the attorney representing the School District, said they have been working cooperatively since the charges were filed on March 21 to investigate where district employees failed and why.
Moffat said that the School District regularly reports child abuse, but he and Olson will work together to determine what led some employees not to report some allegations. The attorneys both indicated that the case doesn’t demonstrate a personnel problem but rather a systemic or institutional issue.
The sides agree that providing all staff members with interactive training is the necessary first step to ensure allegations are properly reported in the future.
“The Park City School District, the County Attorney’s Office and law enforcement are now moving in the same direction in terms of discovering what the issues have been in the past, correcting issues that need to be corrected and making sure that we have a solid child protection front for the children in the community,” Olson said.
The Summit County Attorney’s Office filed misdemeanor charges against the School District stemming from multiple incidents in which prosecutors say district employees did not report at least three allegations of sexual abuse dating back to 2019 to the proper authorities. Under Utah law, anyone who knows or suspects a child is being abused has a legal duty to inform law enforcement or the Utah Division of Child and Family Services.
Summit County Sheriff Justin Martinez and Park City Police Chief Wade Carpenter will help lead the training in tandem with Olson. The two-hour lesson will be a presentation on Utah’s mandatory reporting laws as well as definitions of child abuse and neglect. Olson said she hopes to foster an environment for communication that allows staff members to ask questions and makes them comfortable reaching out with concerns in the future.
The School District hosts faculty training before every school year that covers a wide range of issues connected to identifying and reporting child abuse, according to Moffat. However, the addition of local law enforcement along with the County Attorney’s Office will provide a new, hands-on perspective to school staff — from teachers and coaches to district office workers. He said Superintendent Jill Gildea and the Park City Board of Education embraced the idea for the training.
Olson believes that the county-led training will remove any ambiguity over what should be reported. She hopes that in the future, School District staff feel comfortable coming forward with allegations of abuse without fear of persecution to ensure at-risk children are identified.
Moffat and Olson will continue investigating the case in the coming weeks. A pretrial conference where the attorneys will decide if the case should move forward to trial has been set for May 17 in the Summit County Justice Court.
Olson said the collaboration with Moffat has been beneficial, and she believes they’ll come to a resolution before the pretrial date. The harshest outcome for the Park City School District would be a conviction and a fine of up to $3,000 with a 90% surcharge, according to Olson. She’s unsure if requiring the School District, which is funded by tax dollars, to pay a fine is “justice.”
Instead, she said the just approach is continuing with the training as planned to ensure abuse is reported in the future. Moffat asserted that the School District is committed to providing a safe environment for students.