Editor’s note: This story mentions sexual assault. If you or someone you know needs support, the Metropolitan Organization Countering Sexual Assault operates a 24/7 hotline at 816-531-0233 or 913-642-0233.

Tess Sanford Ramirez and Kim Bergman share an experience they wish they didn’t. Their gymnastics and tumbling coach sexually abused them both — 10 years apart. 

But there’s a key difference between their stories, Bergman said. 

When Bergman told a friend and an adult about the abuse, they didn’t report it. Years later, when the same thing happened to Sanford Ramirez, she also told a friend. But this friend immediately pushed her to disclose the abuse to her father, leading to the coach’s conviction. 

Bergman said it shouldn’t be kids’ responsibility to prevent abuse, but it can make a real difference when children are educated on how to recognize abuse and what to do if it happens to them or to a friend. 

“One thing that I will always have to live with is that I was not my abuser’s last victim,” she said. “He was able to go on to hurt other kids, and I didn’t have the tools to be able to stop it at the time.”

Both women see the law as one tool to protect children, such as by requiring schools to offer age-appropriate education on sexual abuse, keeping sex offenders away from schools and making it harder for educators with allegations in one district to move to another. 

Overall, they said, Kansas law leaves much to be desired. 

As volunteer co-directors of Protecting KS Children from Sexual Predators, they aim to educate the public and advocate for legislative reform. In their professional lives, Sanford Ramirez is an attorney who represents child survivors of abuse and Bergman is a social worker. 

“There’s a lot of laws that people hear about having in other states, and they assume that we have them here in Kansas,” Bergman said. “We don’t.”

Terri Miller, president of the National Center to Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct, and Exploitation, said there are ways Missouri’s laws could be improved but “Kansas is behind on practically every level.” 

Miller said that based on the maps of state laws created by Enough Abuse, Kansas needs to shore up its laws on abuse prevention education, screening school employees, banning nondisclosure agreements and defining grooming. 

The maps are updated on an ongoing basis but can contain mistakes or not contain the most recent developments.

“If teachers get passed from Missouri to Kansas,” Miller said, “they’re going to have a pretty easy time getting through the cracks and finding their way into classrooms.”

Education on preventing child sexual abuse

When Wabaunsee County Sheriff Eric Kirsch made his first foray into legislative advocacy, he thought combating child sex abuse would be a unifying issue. 

Kirsch was advocating for Erin’s Law, a proposal that would have required school districts to offer K-12 students annual age-appropriate lessons on sexual abuse prevention and reporting. The bill also required additional education for teachers on recognizing, preventing and reporting child sexual abuse. 

At least 38 states have adopted versions of Erin’s Law, according to the national Erin’s Law website. Neighboring Missouri legally requires many employees, school board members and students sixth grade and older to receive training on recognizing and reporting sexual abuse.

That’s not the case in Kansas, though the state’s department of education does require training for mandated reporters. 

Instead of unity on the issue, Kirsch said, he encountered apathy and pushback from some legislators.  

Though lawmakers from both major parties expressed support for the proposal, bills in the Kansas House and Senate died in committee this spring. 

A combat veteran, Kirsch likened a lack of education on sexual abuse to being sent into a war zone without ammunition. He said schools prepare children for fires, natural disasters, active shooters and even stranger danger, but many don’t take the threat of abuse from within the school as seriously. 

Through his work in law enforcement, Kirsch said, he was “rudely introduced” to how people react to cases of sexual abuse in schools, such as by not reporting as required by law or by blaming the victim. 

“Imagine if you got hit and injured severely by a drunk driver, and you went to the ER… and the doctor said to you, ‘What were you doing out driving?’” Kirsch said. “Because consistently, all victims of sex crimes, be they male or female, or adults or children… are met with intense scrutiny, whereas that would never happen in any other crime.”

That’s why education for adults is important as well, he said. 

Kirsch said he’s encountered cases where teachers who should have reported abuse didn’t and where high school students — and those around them — didn’t interpret a sexual relationship with a teacher as abuse. That can particularly be true if the victim is a teenage boy and the perpetrator is a woman, he said. 

The goal, Kirsch said, is “normalizing universal condemnation of any sort of child abuse.” Any group of adults should agree that kids shouldn’t be abused and be prepared to take action, he said. 

Communication between schools

Sanford Ramirez, the co-director of Protecting KS Children From Sexual Predators, said she often encounters cases of abuse in schools through her work as an attorney. 

“Very, very oftentimes, that teacher has left another position under similar conditions,” she said. 

Sanford Ramirez and Bergman drew attention to a recent case where a teacher who had been fired from one district for an inappropriate relationship with a student was allowed to keep his license and work in another district after agreeing to complete “corrective and reflective action,” including writing an APA-style paper. 

The teacher had run afoul of regulations meant to prevent grooming by developing an overly intimate and personal relationship with a student, including telling her he was excited to no longer be her teacher. 

In Missouri, public schools are required to seek and share certain information about misconduct and abuse allegations with one another, and the state recently defined and criminalized grooming. It’s unclear if either of those laws would have made a difference in the case, since the teacher’s new school knew of his history and the messages weren’t overtly sexual. 

Bergman said there have been some wins in Kansas, such as removing the statute of limitations on certain criminal child sexual abuse cases and extending the statute of limitations for civil cases. 

When some people hear about a lawsuit, “they think it’s all about the money,” Bergman said. “Yes, there is often financial compensation involved, but it’s also about getting that perpetrator’s name known in the community… to help warn parents. Civil lawsuits also help create change that will help (to) also prevent future children from being abused.”

Sanford Ramirez said her group is also promoting a law that would allow abuse survivors to access their own Kansas Department for Children and Families records, and she is in favor of prohibiting nondisclosure agreements in child sex abuse cases. 

“No survivor should ever be able to be prohibited from talking about their own experiences,” she said. 

Protections in Kansas 

Kansas does have some laws and practices in place that are meant to guard against children being abused in school and elsewhere. 

People in certain professions, such as licensed health care workers, social workers, counselors and law enforcement officers are mandatory reporters of child abuse. So are teachers, school administrators and other school employees. 

A spokesperson for the Kansas Department for Children and Families (DCF) said in an email that both the department and law enforcement have the responsibility to receive and investigate reports of child abuse. 

DCF maintains a Child Abuse and Neglect Registry and adds people to the registry due to court orders or if the department substantiates a report of abuse. People listed on the registry can’t work, live or volunteer in a childcare home or facility that is regulated by DCF or the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. 

The registry isn’t public. DCF only discloses information in certain situations, such as to allow schools to protect students’ safety. 

Kansas law also prohibits teachers and others in a position of authority from having sexual contact with students, even if the student is above the age of consent and the relationship is otherwise consensual. The state’s age of consent is 16. 

For the purposes of that law, a teacher includes any professional employee — such as a classroom teacher, coach or administrator — at any public or private school in the K-12 range. 

Kansas’ education department has processes for background checking and weeding out licensed educators who engage in misconduct. 

Ashley Stites-Hubbard, general counsel for the department, said the state initiates an investigation when it receives an allegation of educator misconduct. She said anyone can report misconduct, including students, parents, school administrators, law enforcement or the media. 

But certain people are required to report, she said. School administrators must notify the department if an employee is put on leave or had any other action against their employment due to alleged misconduct in a category that could result in their license being denied, suspended or revoked. 

Law enforcement also notifies the department of any alerts on educator background checks, she said, and so does DCF if it substantiates an abuse allegation. 

Licensed educators are enrolled in a continuous background check through the Rap Back program. In a follow-up email, Stites-Hubbard said there are no differences in how public and accredited private school teachers are treated, but that unaccredited private school teachers are not required to be licensed by the state. 

Outside of required reports from schools, law enforcement and DCF, “if parents don’t notify us of something immediately, then we wouldn’t know,” she said. 

To report educator misconduct to the Kansas State Department of Education’s Office of General Counsel, call 785-296-3204 or send an email to gc@ksde.gov. 

Stites-Hubbard said that the sooner the department is notified, the sooner it can start an investigation. But she said parents also shouldn’t skip the step of notifying local school officials, who have direct control over employment decisions. Depending on the situation, parents could contact DCF and law enforcement as well, she said. 

If Stites-Hubbard’s office finds enough evidence of the alleged misconduct, it files a professional complaint with the Professional Practices Commission. She said the commission is made up of nine educators appointed by the Kansas State Board of Education. 

The commission hears the case and makes a recommendation that goes to the state board for final approval. The recommendation could be to revoke or suspend the license, censure the educator or do nothing. Stites-Hubbard said that state regulations leave room for discretion, but that the department legally can’t issue or renew a license after certain serious offenses. 

State regulations say a license can be denied for a long list of reasons, including felonies; other criminal convictions related to drugs, theft or children; engaging in sexual conduct or an inappropriately intimate relationship with a student; failing to report abuse or acting in a way that results in a substantiated finding of child abuse. 

Sanford Ramirez said nothing in Kansas law prevents schools from educating students about abuse prevention and reporting, even if they aren’t legally required to do so. 

“How many kids are being hurt in our community right now, and we’re just not giving them the words to seek help?” she asked. “That’s something we can do right now.”