Recently I departed from my previous Taekwondo m school where I’d been an instructor for 9 years and training for 16 years.
My former school has an adult student with autism who’s 22M. He messaged two 13F students and one 16M student slurs and asked at least one of the thirteen year old students to go to his house. All of these students are first degrees except for the 16 year old who’s a second degree. The adult student was told to stop by the school’s most senior staff member but continued to communicate with the teenagers. The senior staff member knew about this and had a second conversation with the adult student. I only found out about these communications because another 14M student told me the adult student has sent the 16M student sexually explicit material. I pieced together all the snippets I heard with other staff members who also heard snippets from the teens, confirmed with the 16M student about what kind of material he received, and as I live in one of two states where all residents are mandated reporters and it was the right thing to do, I contacted the authorities.
The owners of the Taekwondo school knew about these inappropriate communications since at least late April or early May and decided not to tell staff members besides the most senior instructor.
All of the teens and adults have one class at the end of the day that they can take. It’s a family class that accepts students 7 and up and allows all ranks to attend. As both the owners and the most senior instructor would typically leave before this class would begin, I would often teach this class without any supervision. Because the adult student is the same rank as the teenagers and around the same size, I would of had the adult student partner with several of them. As I did not know about the situation, I could not take any preventative measures. I did not know to keep him away from minors, meaning student safety was jeopardized, especially since the school has multiple rooms that groups would often split into to maximize space when practicing forms. Similarly, I was also training another second degree to become an instructor who was a minor and I would of absolutely had her work with this adult student as part of her training. Once again, I was not informed about this situation and so I did not know to not have her work with him, jeopardizing her safety as well (although she had heard snippets of the situation since she’s friends with the teens involved).
After I filed the police report, a few things happened. First, the owner told the head instructor they should of had a staff meeting to alert all staff members to the situation. He told me however not to tell people when he discovered I told the second most senior staff member. I ignored him and told the rest of the staff for their own safety as many of them teach/help out with this class on other days of the week and several of them are teenagers themselves. Also, when he found out I told the staff, he was pissed.
Speaking of which, one of the owners called the second most senior staff member to “clear the air”. She told him they were going to keep the adult student as it be unfair to him to remove him due to his autism. The teens however have expressed with me that they were uncomfortable with the adult student’s presence and several have actively avoided taking class to avoid being near him. She also told this staff member that the staff “don’t need to know everything”.
I resigned and left the school two weeks ago Monday. I decided I cannot morally support school owners who’d allow this situation to happen, the jeopardizing student safety the way they did was unacceptable, that they continue to show a lack of regard for student safety by allowing this adult student to stay, and that they had put my future at risk (I’m only 21). I also told other school owners he works with and he’s pissed. I know that because I went last night to get my black belt certificate and he basically screamed at me the whole time. So yeah, it’s been great.