SECRET SHAME OF OUR SCHOOLS – PERV SUSPECTS KEPT NEAR KIDS)

School officials have long insisted tenured teachers accused of sex abuse are taken away from children and reassigned to desk jobs at district superintendent's offices.  They fail to mention that most superintendent's offices are located in schools, where these predators can still prey on unsuspecting kids.  The Martin Luther King Jr. HS in Manhattan, Edward R. Murrow HS in Brooklyn and Lehman and Theodore Roosevelt high schools in the Bronx are considered the dumping grounds.  In the past 30 months, eight accused sex abusers have worked at Martin Luther King, where the Manhattan high school superintendent has a third-floor office.  Lehman HS and Murrow HS have each accommodated seven alleged sex abusers.  When Lehman gets too crowded, they dump them at Theodore Roosevelt HS, which took in three.  According to the statistics compiled by the Post, over the past 2 1/2 years, 45 suspected child molesters were transferred to district offices inside schools.  A frightening 40 percent of them were repeat offenders, who had been warned or reprimanded.

Howard Banco, 55, was accused in November, of touching a 12 year old girl's arm and saying, You have a nice body.  You could be a model.   He then told her he had a camera and tried to coax her into posing.  He was a resource room teacher at IS 234 in Brooklyn.  The girl complained to a guidance counselor who told investigators.  He was removed from the school and dumped at the District 22 superintendent's office, which occupies the third floor at the Center for Multiple Handicapped Children, a special-education school for out most vulnerable kids.  Banco had two prior cases in 1994 and 1998, in which he was warned and reprimanded for touching and trying to get 12 and 13 year old girls to pose for photographs.  He was suspended with pay in January and charges are pending.

(New York)