A Pennsylvania school resource officer was just convicted of raping students — at least once while in uniform on campus — and a Colorado paraprofessional was charged with dragging a developmentally disabled child across a floor, and in neither case is the system that handed these people power over children facing any accountability whatsoever.
These aren't isolated incidents. They're features of a government school monopoly that puts adults first and kids last, then demands more money when it fails.
Stephen Carroll, 50, a former Lackawanna County school resource officer at West Scranton High School, was convicted Thursday on 29 charges including rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, and statutory sexual assault, according to the Mechanicsburg Patriot News. The assaults dated back to the late 2000s and early 2010s. Carroll initially faced 46 counts. He provided victims alcohol at his home, and at least one assault occurred at the school while he wore his uniform — the very uniform meant to signal safety to students and parents.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday framed the verdict around the survivors, saying they "for years lived knowing that their abuser was free in the community." Fair enough. But Sunday said nothing about the school district or the police department that stationed a predator among teenagers and gave him a badge. No administrator was named. No policy failure was cited. The system walks away clean.
Meanwhile in Colorado, Cynthia Monroe, 60, a paraprofessional at Ute Meadows Elementary near Littleton, was charged with felony third-degree assault and misdemeanor child abuse after allegedly grabbing a developmentally disabled student and dragging the child more than ten feet by the arm on April 16, according to the Denver Post. The child sustained visible injuries. Another staff member had to intervene to stop it.
Monroe had been with the district since 2009 and moved into a special education role in 2014. Jeffco Public Schools confirmed her background checks were clear at hire — the standard talking point whenever the system needs cover. She was placed on administrative leave after the investigation began and later terminated. A warrant for her arrest wasn't issued until June 22, more than two months after the incident.
The Denver Post noted the background check compliance without asking the obvious question: what good is a background check on a hire date if there's no accountability structure for the fifteen years that follow?
Neither outlet pressed the districts on systemic failure. The Patriot News let the Attorney General set the frame — survivors, not systems. The Denver Post treated the background-check line as sufficient explanation. Both buried the real story: government schools are a monopoly, and monopolies don't answer to the people they fail.
Parents don't need another blue-ribbon commission. They need the power to walk away — to take their children and their tax dollars to schools that have to earn their trust or lose it. As long as the administrative state holds a monopoly on education, it holds parents hostage. That's the open question neither conviction answers.
