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Under national scrutiny after a number of recent arrests of teachers and aides, the chancellor of the New York City public schools, Dennis Walcott, has ordered a review of cases of teacher misconduct. But his direction parallels yet another teacher’s arrest and for many is too little, too late. This week’s arrest saw Reserve Officers Training Corps teacher Darryl Lynch, a teacher at Manhattan’s High School of Graphic Communication Arts, taken from school and charged with sexually touching a 14-year-old female student. Mr. Lynch worked at the school since 1997.

Last week I wrote about the Los Angeles Unified School District’s failure to notify parents of reports of sexual abuse by teachers. Their failure to inform parents went to such an extreme that parents didn’t know that a teacher in their students’ school was suspected of abuse until the media reported on the arrests. The story is shocking and unacceptable, but these three incidents demonstrate failure on the part of one school district, so at least we can find solace in the fact that this is isolated, atypical behavior, right?

When Los Angeles school officials choose to protect their own image over the protection of the children they serve, they are mimicking the long time behavior of Catholic Bishops who for years kept quiet about clergy predators in order to prevent “scandal”. Indeed, when will we ever learn? Clearly, when there is even the slightest chance that children could be in harm’s way, parents, and the community, must be informed when, and why, a teacher has been removed from the classroom because of child molestation.