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Great Falls School District: Employees Mandatory Reporters of Abuse

By KFBB News Team

Story Created: Oct 26, 2009 at 4:30 PM MST

Story Updated: Oct 26, 2009 at 9:12 PM MST

It has been one week since allegations surfaced that special needs children were abused at North Middle School in Great Falls.

Tiffonie Schilling was one of the first parents to come forward. She says, her 14-year old son Garret who suffers from autism was forced to eat his own vomit and sit in his feces for several hours at North Middle School.

The School District says employees are expected to come forward if they see any abuse at school, but Schilling says she is afraid some employees may not come forward because they are afriad they may lose their job.

Schilling says, "I just think it would be really important at this point for the school district to maybe make a public statement saying it's okay for people to come forward and it's okay for people to tell the truth, and they won't have any fear of losing their jobs."

Superintendent Cheryl Crawley says she has reminded employees about the policy stating employees must report abuse since the allegations surfaced. Crawley says, "The school district employees are what's considered mandatory reporters and that means that if there were ever to be any sort of abuse in a school system, verbal, physical, psychological, that they are required to report any evidence of that and so I would absolutely support that and in fact I think that I've already initiated that aspect and have reminded people of their mandatory reporting responsibilities."

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