Richard Parrett, a former youth pastor and basketball coach, has been sentenced to almost two years in prison for two counts of First Degree Sexual Abuse which occurred in September while he was employed as a coach/teacher at Vancouver Christian High School in the state of Washington. What is even more upsetting is how this individual was able to hopscotch from one school to another for years with this mark on his record in plain sight!

KPIC 4 News in Oregon conducted an investigation into the educational institutions where Richard Parrett was employed over time. The overall findings point to an inadequate background check process and an almost willful disregard on the part of personnel in charge of making the final decisions in employing him.

In 1996, Richard Parrett was employed as a youth pastor at the Open Bible Christian Center in Riddle, Oregon. There, he was involved with a minor under his care in a manner that was described in a disciplinary letter as “not reaching the full extent of intimacy but was still highly inappropriate.”

After the incident, Parrett was dismissed from his position and moved out of the state. Gary Peterson who was the pastor at the time, admitted to poor judgment in deciding not to contact police regarding the incident. Upon learning years later that the same individual was in the running for a job at Riddle High School, Peterson stated that “I never thought he would get a job working with kids again. A lot of people dropped the ball starting with me.”

And yes, there would be more balls dropped in the years that followed. What’s so surprising is that despite the facts being out in the open, no one seemed to think of running a dedicated check to determine the extent of past misconduct.

In any event, Riddle School District Superintendant Dave Gianotti was unable to provide any record of a background check ever being run on Parrett. Did they even have a background check process in place?  Gianotti said that “We do now. I don’t know about at the time, we don’t have any records of it.”

Parrett served at Riddle High for two years as the assistant coach for the boys’ basketball team and then, in the summer of 2002, was hired by the Canyonville Christian Academy (CCA). Again, hiring protocols that should have been in place and questions that should have been posed were both noticeably under-utilized or absent.

Former CCA superintendant, Pam Shepard, stated that Richard Parrett’s 1996 incident was discussed at length at a board meeting with other members before he was hired. KPIC, which was allowed access to the board’s meeting minutes, found no record whatsoever of that discussion.

A reasonable explanation for such a blatant departure from established protocol was not to be found in the reply provided by current CCA Chief Executive Officer, Dan Godzich:

“My understanding is the superintendant essentially has the hiring authority. And of course there are sometimes gaps between board meetings and there are places and slots that need to be filled and there is authority for a superintendant to hire in the interim of that sort of thing.”

Gary Petersen, who served on the board at CCA before moving to Ohio, said that “I don’t know how the board didn’t know about the incident…someone should have stepped forward.”

Fortunately, it’s a wake up call that hasn’t gone unheeded. Because of the KPIC investigation, CCA has reviewed and revamped its background screening process.  Additionally, Oregon has recently passed blanketing legislation that will require stricter background screening standards for all school districts.

While a background check may not have uncovered any convictions (because Parrett wasn’t charged the first time), it may very well have uprooted the complaint against him for inappropriate conduct with a minor at his previous place of employment and led his new employer not to put their trust in him.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 12:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.