The day Creative Frontiers School was no more

Imagine yourself in this situation...

You just put in a long day at the office. You get in your car and head to your child's school to pick them up, just like you do every day. Only today, instead of the cars of other parents, you are met with police cruisers blocking the entrance. Your heart starts racing. You immediately think the worst. There was a shooting. Someone died. My child was injured. You ask the officers what is going on, and you get the response of, "the entire school is a crime scene" and you are directed to speak to the chaplains. Your hands are shaking, your heart is beating rapidly in your chest. Panic is an understatement. You NEED to know what is wrong.

When you finally get some answers, you are told to attend a parent meeting that very same evening. You find out that some former employee made some claims of child molestation against the principal. You are angry, deservingly so. Then you see the same ex-employee making comments on TV. You are told by other parents at the school, teachers, and family of the principal that this woman made it up. The anger over the situation you were placed in trumps the true issue at hand, your child's principal was just accused of molesting children in the school over a 15 year period. You have to scramble to find new childcare for the rest of the summer. The school year is starting so you have to find a new elementary school. You don't want to believe the allegations. You put your child in that environment. It MUST be that this employee was lying.

Then you start hearing things that don't make sense. People are talking about building code violations, resume "gaps", agreements with the city that don't seem to exist. You raise your eyebrow, but still give the benefit of the doubt. You read the Department of Social Services reports. You see numerous violations. How did you not know this? That eyebrow raises a little higher. Then comes the criminal charges. You can see, right in front of you that this isn't one former employee. It is a whole lot more. You swallow hard and decide that maybe your first instinct in this matter wasn't the right one. Maybe you were blinded by your anger over the way CHPD closed the school. You could believe that one person might be lying, but 7 different children in the police report...

Unfortunately it seems way too many former CFS parents experienced this exact scenario. Of course no one WANTS to believe Mr. Adams is guilty. But the very real fact is that he very well might be. Certainly there is more going on than a disgruntled ex-employee. Surely it is more than a "witch hunt". And while the CHPD probably could have handled the closure a bit differently and reduced the stress on the parents, children, and teachers, that doesn't mean they are trying to "cover their behinds from being sued". This is not "a repeat of the McMartin case" and neither is every other case of suspected child molestation. That is no better than saying every male principal and teacher MUST be a pedophile just because they work with children and there have been convictions of males working as teachers and principals.

We at Doubting CFS are deeply sorry for anyone who experienced trauma on the day of the CFS closure. I think that CHPD had a tricky situation on their hands. There really was no precedent for this type of situation. I think it could have been handled differently, but I think that they were just trying to do their jobs. They certainly weren't TRYING to traumatize anyone. This is one of those cases where you have to accept what has happened and learn from it. I am positive that the CHPD is not trying to falsify charges just to justify their response for the closure. To assume that is their only motivation is asinine.

Please CFS parents, do not let the gut-wrenching experience you had when you picked up your child blind you to what is right in front of you. We wish you all the best and hope that your children are all adjusting well to their new schools and that you NEVER have to experience anything like this again.