McInerney stated that his intention was to prevent teens from engaging in underage sex and experimentation with drugs and alcohol.

The New Jersey Star-Ledger reported that Bart McInerney, former baseball coach at St Rose High School in Belmar, New Jersey is in hot water for engaging in sexually explicit phone and text message conversations with his young charges from 2001 up until his arrest in 2007.

Although McInerney stated that his intention was to prevent teens from engaging in underage sex and experimentation with drugs and alcohol, testimony from his former students suggested otherwise.

“I was unsure of everything.” said one witness who took the stand describing how McInerney had initiated conversations regarding sports and family life, but then veered into sexually explicit lines of questioning. “At first I was hesitant and then he pushed a little more.”

Other former students stated how their coach had offered cash payment for every “sexting” text message sent his way. Subject matter typically revolved around intimate relations with girlfriends and masturbation. One young man said that he had collected close to $600 before McInerney’s arrest in 2007.

The real bombshell to us is when former St. Rose Athletic Director Richard Stainton took the stand. Looking out at the courtroom assembly, Stainton admitted that a background check was never run on McInerney. In fact, there wasn’t even a resume kept on file for him!

Is it just me or do these creeps just get a little more brazen year after year? Paying teens for sexually explicit text messages? I wonder how McInerney thought he could he could get away with something like that

Let’s hope that whoever replaced Richard Stainton has enough sense to run a thorough background screening on any and all coaches looking to ply a part in the St. Rose academic programs. I think the fallout of one Bart McInerney is enough for any school to have to deal with.

Shane Vicars, an after-school program teacher and mentor to young children, finds himself in custody after being arrested Wednesday, January 14th on suspicion of more than 15 counts of lewd acts and child annoyance.

KCRA.com reported that Shane Vicars, an after-school program teacher and mentor to young children, finds himself in custody after being arrested Wednesday, January 14^th on suspicion of more than 15 counts of lewd acts and child annoyance.

A credentialed child development teacher operating with the San Juan Unified School District in Sacramento County, Vicars is said to have victimized program participants ranging in age from 7 to 11 years old. Detectives with the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department were also said to believe that “there’s a high probability that there are other victims.”

Vicars, 25, had begun work in 2008 at Sierra Oaks Elementary assisting students with their studies before and after school. Although the background check portion of his application had come back clean, parents began noticing an unusual behavioral pattern with Vicars and his young charges. 

Collie Christensen is a parent whose children are students at Sierra. Oaks said that Vicars often would spend free time playing with his sons between work shifts as well as on the weekends.

He stated, “I was 25 once and my idea of a good time wasn’t hanging out with 5 and 10 year old boys”

The consensus among concerned parents was that the situation was getting a little too creepy to tolerate and decided that tactful action was required.

Christensen said, “My wife and I talked about it and started talking to some other parents…my wife wrote a very nice letter to the school superintendant, to the principal, to the head of the Discovery Club.”

However, at the time of the KCRA.com report, the school wouldn’t acknowledge it had ever received a letter alerting them of Vicars’ inappropriate behavior, stating it was a “personal matter.”

Trent Allen, Director of Communication for the San Juan Unified School District, said that if a letter had been received concerning that level of misconduct, a prompt and immediate investigation would have been initiated.

 However, Allen has stated the district is prepared to cooperate with the authorities.  “It’s a criminal investigation. We’re assisting the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department as needed.” 

Collie Christensen is one of many parents who feel it shouldn’t even have come to this point: “The fact that the school district knew something and didn’t do anything about it and now he’s been arrested, shame on them.”

Despite Vicars having passed his background check, there seems to have been way too many signs this individual was not fit to interact with young children. A thorough and ongoing investigation will no doubt provide the answers many parents are seeking. Even if the San Juan School District is vindicated of any negligence, it needs to carefully reevaluate the way it responds to future parental complaints or suspicions concerning creeps in the classroom.

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.