In reaction to child seduction charges against an Indianapolis Public Schools counselor, the district’s superintendent condemned the school officials’ delay in reporting the abuse as “a clear case of incompetence.”
In a public statement Friday, IPS Superintendent Lewis Ferebee acknowledged school administrators failed to report the allegations against the counselor, Shana Taylor, to the Department of Child Services immediately after being notified.
It took six days for IPS officials to report the case to DCS after the assistant principal initially heard about it from a parent, a delay that violated state law, school board policy and administrative guidelines, Ferebee said.
“I am very disturbed that reporting the allegations did not occur in a timely manner,” Ferebee said.
The allegations led to the arrest of 37-year-old Shana Taylor, who was charged March 2 with nine counts of child seduction, one count of dissemination of matter harmful to minors and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Taylor reportedly had sexual relations with at least two of the male students, ages 16 and 17, she was responsible for counseling. Taylor reportedly met with one of them for oral and vaginal sex during the course of several months, according to court documents.
She was hired by IPS in March 2015 and most recently served as a guidance counselor at an IPS alternative education program, Positive Supports Academy.
The case remains under investigation and additional charges can still be added.On March 4, the IPS School Board voted to terminate Taylor for “gross misconduct.”
An independent investigation into the chain of events that followed the initial report indicates at least six school officials were made aware of the allegations and did not report them to DCS, Ferebee confirmed in his statement. However, all of these employees were aware of their reporting obligations, he said.
When a parent first reported the inappropriate relationship to an assistant principal at the Positive Supports Academy, the assistant principal consulted with the principal on February 17, who was on medical leave.
The principal came in to help address the situation, but neither administrator contacted DCS.
Instead, the assistant principal contacted the director of student services, Ferebee said. The director inaccurately assumed the administrators had contacted CPS and instructed the assistant principal to contact human resources.
Human resources immediately worked on making sure Taylor had no further access to IPS students, Ferebee said. But once again, the human resources employee assumed DCS had already been contacted.
“At the corpus of these careless errors is a very disappointing tangle of miscommunication,” Ferebee said.
On Feb. 22, an employee processing Taylor’s file for recommendation for termination noticed DCS had not been called. Yet it was not until the following day, Feb. 23, the principal finally sent a report to DCS.
“These breakdowns are unacceptable and simply cannot occur,” Ferebee said.
He said district-wide training is being planned with an external agency to clarify safety protocols.
Taylor was a student at IU and a recipient of the Cox Scholarship in 2008, according to an IU news release and her LinkedIn account.
The 17-year-old student told police he and Taylor had sexual intercourse or oral sex on more than 20 different occasions, according to court documents.
Several of these instances took place in her counseling office. Other times they met at the boy’s residence, Taylor’s home in Greenwood, Indiana, in the backseat of her car or in a Bloomington hotel.
A different 16-year-old student said he engaged in three-way sex with Taylor and the 17-year-old student. While she was giving oral sex to the older student, the 16-year-old penetrated her from behind, according to court documents.
Taylor’s trial is set for May 11. She is being held at the Marion County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.
