PSS is barred from disclosing info on sexual abuse allegations

The Public School System is legally barred from disclosing information on sexual abuse allegations committed by employees due to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

PSS legal counsel Tiberius D. Mocanu, in a letter to a private citizen requesting such information under the CNMI Open Government Act, stated that PSS intends to fully cooperate with the Office Attorney General’s investigation on alleged sexual abuse at PSS once it begins.

Additionally, because of the private citizen not being a law enforcement agency or acting under a court order, PSS is not able to provide information that was requested.

Mocanu stated information that was requested, by said private citizen, is personal identifiable information that involves current or past PSS students, which is protected by both federal and state law. “Consequently, because students have a privacy interest in this information, it may only be made available to them or their parents as well as to a law enforcement agency or court,” said Mocanu.

Additionally, PSS employees are legally allowed to have the right of privacy under the CNMI Open Government Act and any personal information in their files other than their names, present and past position titles, grades, salaries, and duty stations are considered exempt from the OGA. With that, Mocanu stated that still, PSS is legally unable to provide information that was requested. Mocanu stated that PSS takes the allegations of sexual abuse of its students seriously, and will continue to cooperate with the AG’s office in its investigation.

Irene Holl, the private citizen who Mocanu is addressing, recently filed the OGA against PSS because she believes that parents who have children, who are still going to school, need to have access to this information to “ensure our kids are safe,” safe from “predators” that are potentially working in schools, who are in the community that may have been identified during their employment in the school system, and who may be working at other schools or in areas where they positioned to put children at risk.

“We know that over the years there have been instances where employees of PSS having been subject to allegations of sexual misconduct, have been transferred to other schools or quietly released from services. Collectively, we’ve heard of instances of sexual misconduct taking place in our school’s over the decades, some of these have come to light more publicly than others,” Holl said through a letter to PSS.

Holl added that the practice where employees suspected of sexual misconduct eventually led to legal action, but most were met with “minor administration actions,” have been going on for decades. “We know that this practice has been going on for many decades, with serious questions about the appropriateness of the punitive measures or lack of punitive measures taken in these cases by PSS,” said Holl.

Additionally, due to the OGA, PSS did not confirm the names, that Holl listed, were involved in sexual misconduct.