Former teachers at Colorado Springs’ Vanguard School allege flaws in mandatory reporting process
Her student was known to exaggerate, administrators at The Vanguard School, a K-12 charter school in Colorado Springs, allegedly told then-junior high Latin teacher Mary Beth Arendash. He was one of those “problem” kids whom staff warned her about at the beginning of the year, she said.
But Arendash thought she recognized other factors. Rather than a “problem” acting out, she reasoned, her 13-year-old student might be struggling with a learning disability or mental health issues.
She suggested to school leaders he be screened for a support plan, and when no changes were made, she opted instead to work with him individually every day after school. That’s when Arendash said the concerning comments began.
He told Arendash he was being physically abused, she said.
A mandated reporter by law, Arendash said she raised concerns to school leadership that her student was at risk. Inaction by the school’s administration prompted her to follow up, she said, but administrators allegedly told her she was overreacting.
The teen died by suicide just weeks into the 2020 school year, according to the El Paso County Coroner’s Office.
“I had told them several times this child was at risk. I told them exactly what type of abuse he was suffering … and he went home and shot himself in the head,” Arendash said. “It was the most heartbreaking thing ever. This was my one kid that I tried to help, and they wouldn’t do anything.”
Multiple former teachers and parents have called into question the Harrison School District 2-authorized charter school’s mandatory reporting practices, alleging they depart from legal requirements and leave some students unprotected.
Vanguard administrators maintain they are in full compliance with the law and handle each reported case with sensitivity.
“There was the barest minimum of effort to meet the legal requirements of mandated reporting,” said Valerie Younger, a former high school history teacher of five years. “Handling suicide is some sort of horrible, shameful thing. It was almost as if it’s a black mark on the school, and it kind of is if notice had been given (that the student was at risk).”
Per written Vanguard procedure, teachers are instructed to report student concerns of all types — suicidality, abuse, sexual assault, neglect — to their building leader rather than outside authorities. Administrators will reach out to the appropriate channels on teachers’ behalf, under the policy.
The administrative middleman ensures each report has the full context of a student’s situation, according to former junior high Assistant Principal Beth Danjuma, who stepped down from the role in September after three years. The reasoning is that school leaders have access to the bigger picture, including what previous teachers have reported and what a student’s siblings might also be experiencing.
But, such a procedure does not comply with Colorado mandatory reporting laws, according to Margaret Ochoa, a child sexual abuse prevention specialist with the Colorado Department of Public Safety’s School Safety Resource Center. Ochoa trains school employees on mandatory reporting requirements.
Graduation exercises for The Vanguard School are held in May 2015 at The Vanguard School.
When there is reasonable suspicion a child has been subjected to abuse or neglect, state law requires mandatory reporters such as teachers to file a report with one of only three entities, Ochoa said. Those three are the local law enforcement agency, the child abuse reporting hotline system (844-co4kids) or the county department of child protection.
Reporting to an internal boss does not satisfy this duty because state law does not permit a mandatory reporter to delegate their responsibility to somebody else in their organization, according to the Colorado Department of Education.
“That’s contrary to what the law wants mandatory reporters to do, which is to report,” Ochoa said.
Administrators might have different interpretations of what bears reporting, causing some reports to never be made, as allegedly was the case with the boy Arendash said she brought to the attention of Vanguard officials.
Ochoa said she has confronted past situations in which school policy did not align with state law. She attributes much of the confusion to inconsistent training on how to identify and report abuse. Thus schools approach the topic in different ways as they train with different entities. What’s more, Ochoa said, the mandatory reporting law has a “subjective nature” that does not clearly define its terms, leading to misinterpretation.
Varied implementations
Language surrounding mandatory reporting policies in the Pikes Peak region’s 17 school districts is nearly identical with only minor differences, yet implementations vary.
In two of the region’s largest school districts, Academy School District 20 and Colorado Springs School District 11, spokespeople say teachers must immediately report their concerns to the appropriate outside agency themselves. It is not sufficient to only notify one’s supervisor because it is the legal responsibility of each staff member to report their own concerns, they say.
In Widefield School District 3, which neighbors Vanguard’s district, teachers are instructed to immediately notify their principal or building administrator, then make an oral report to an agency themselves.
And according to a spokesperson for Vanguard’s chartering district, Harrison School District 2, teachers are required to either make reports themselves and follow up with their principal afterward or provide details to their principal or counselor, who in turn can report on their behalf but must provide the staff member with a copy of the report.
An aerial photograph of The Vanguard School in December. The Vanguard School is the academically top-ranked charter school in Colorado Springs and one of the top ranked in the state.
Vanguard administrators, however, say legal counsel assures they are in alignment with mandatory reporting laws and district policy.
During the 2021-2022 school year they made 17 reports to the Department of Human Services. Last school year they made 26 reports, according to provided data.
“We involve our attorneys in all these instances, and their job is to interpret the law and to make sure that as a school we are acting legally,” Vanguard Director of Operations Jeff Yocum said. “We have done that. We don’t ever just shoot from the hip.”
A former Vanguard junior high science teacher, who asked that her name not be used to protect her student’s privacy, is among the staff who say otherwise.
“Years later, I have realized that that isn’t how it works,” said the teacher, who is now working on her dissertation for a doctorate in education.
“It’s not enough to report it to your leadership. … I have also through experience learned that sometimes things didn’t make it past leadership if they didn’t think it was serious enough, if they thought the kid had threatened suicide too many times, if they thought kids were over-exaggerating or if they’d been in too much trouble.”
Danjuma said she has never failed to report a concern brought to her attention during her three years as a building leader. Further, she said, “even if it is a frequent flyer” student who often has concerns, she evaluates each situation as its own. She said she does not think there has been a situation in which she told a teacher they were exaggerating, noting “it would depend on I guess the situation.”
“But if it was something serious, something that we would be concerned about their safety, their wellbeing, their emotional wellbeing, their physical wellbeing, I take that stuff very seriously,” Danjuma said.
“I do my absolute best to make sure that teachers who have a concern — because I used to be that teacher — and have brought a concern know before they go home and have to think about it, that something has been done for that child.”
Outside agencies used
Vanguard’s high school campus consistently ranks number one in Colorado Springs in test scores, according to U.S. News and World Report. Lower campuses also receive acclaim for their academic rigor.
But teachers say pressure in the pursuit of excellence can be too much, fostering a culture that values grit above all else and works against mandatory reporting of mental health concerns. Teachers described the prevailing mentality among school leadership as, “If a kid struggled, they just weren’t trying hard enough.”
Another former employee, who served as Vanguard’s first social worker and wished to remain anonymous due to her continued work in education, said she once challenged administration on its mandatory reporting process, only to allegedly be told she “should not stray; that (her) loyalty should be towards the school, not towards (her) social work license; and that (she) had to follow their protocol.”
She continued making calls to the proper authorities anyway, she said, following the channels as she understood them to be defined by law.
Graduation exercises for The Vanguard School were held in May 2015 at The Vanguard School.
“There’s so much resistance to the concept of teens struggling with mental health. There was a general overall feeling that these kids are better than that, we taught them better, they have stronger characters than other kids,” the social worker said.
Administrators theorize that perhaps teachers assume a report has not been made if they haven’t heard back in a timely manner, or perhaps they assume so because administrators are unable to provide the specifics for which they are looking.
Vanguard Executive Director Renee Henslee said to combat the latter concern, administrators now provide an overview of how school leaders handle situations and why they can’t divulge certain types of information.
“Sometimes it’s just not an understanding of how we’re doing things and what we’re doing,” Henslee said.
“In a school setting, FERPA (the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which provides rights to parents and students regarding the disclosure of education records) may be in conflict with safety and security of students,” Yocum added.
“We tell our staff, if you’re acting on behalf of a student’s safety or security, we’ve got your back, and we want to share. We are trying our best, but as Beth (Danjuma) points out, it’s a very dynamic environment every day, and there’s certainly the possibility that there were examples where we did not close a loop to the satisfaction of a staff member, and we try our best to do that.”
Administrators say although they require employees to report concerns to them, they do not prohibit employees from also making reports to outside agencies.
Former junior high English teacher Molly Fiedler is one of several employees who disagrees, alleging staff was “explicitly told” not to make mandatory reporting calls themselves. She remains skeptical that the school properly handled teachers’ concerns, she said, which is one of a “laundry list” of reasons she ultimately resigned.
“I refuse to be a part of a system that doesn’t support kids and limits teachers’ ability to follow the law and to protect children,” Fiedler said.
“There are probably dozens of educators who have left Vanguard, who have left there with a bad taste in their mouth for the way that they treat children,” she said. ”Not just because of specific incidents that happened, but just as the general culture in that environment.”
One former junior high science teacher claims she experienced retaliation as a result of following administration’s faulty instruction.
After a student first emailed her about severe bullying, the teacher said she alerted administration for guidance on how to proceed.
“They (the student) were talking about being depressed, they were talking about suicide, they were talking about all sorts of things, and I said, ‘Yeah, this is a little bit out of my depth. What do you want me to do?’” the former teacher said.
Administrators instructed her to continue receiving emails from the student and expressing her support, she said. Having never worked in a classroom before, she said she didn’t know any better.
Her concerns intensified regarding the student’s safety. The teacher said she was in a panic and sought instruction from administrators. Without immediate response, she decided to notify the parents of what appeared to be alarming messages.
They were upset their child was seeking help and they hadn’t been informed by the school sooner, the teacher said.
She was subsequently reprimanded by Vanguard for how she handled the matter, she said, with administrators taking particular issue with her decision to engage the student by email.
But, she said, she’d only followed their guidance.
The Vanguard Elementary School this month.
“I had been told to follow that pathway,” the teacher said. “I had received (the emails) and not done anything with them because my administration told me to not do anything, and to this day I am still devastated that I didn’t think to know better. That student should’ve received help from the beginning. When I reported it to my leadership, that shouldn’t have been the end.”
Former Latin teacher Arendash said, days after her student’s funeral, she approached the administration in total dismay. She’d warned them, she said. She wanted assurance they would take such situations seriously in the future.
“They were like, ‘Well, it’s your fault because he said that it was the school that killed him (in his suicide note),’” Arendash said. “And then I went and cried in the bathroom for 15 minutes.”
Vanguard administrators declined to comment on whether there were instances in which they chose not to report concerns brought specifically by Arendash.
“Every issue that comes to our attention, we give thorough review, and we make sure we are acting appropriately, legally sufficiently, and most importantly, on behalf of that student,” Yocum said. “I cannot imagine there was an instance with that employee or any other where we wouldn’t act that way.”
“But how it is interpreted, we cannot control,” Henslee added.
Colorado House Bill 22-1240 last year established a mandatory reporter task force on which Ochoa serves. The two-year task force seeks to establish best practices, recommend changes to training requirements and reporting procedures and add clarity to some of the more subjective aspects of the law that enables schools to slip out of compliance, perhaps unknowingly. The task force will submit a final report of its findings on Jan. 1, 2025.
For now, Ochoa, the specialist with the Department of Public Safety’s School Safety Resource Center, encourages school employees with reasonable suspicion that a child is at risk to make a report directly to local law enforcement or public health officials.
“(The school’s administrators) don’t seem to believe the kids,” Arendash said. “Or if they do, they think it’s not as bad as it is.”
The sun sets on The Vanguard School on a December day.