RCSD teacher convicted of special ed student abuse resigns
James Doran was accused of physically abusing students with autism. His former school district paid $1.2 million to settle a federal lawsuit.
RCSD teacher convicted of special ed student abuse resigns James Doran was accused of physically abusing students with autism. His former school district paid $1.2 million to settle a federal lawsuit. Check out this story on DemocratandChronicle.com: https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2019/03/26/rcsd-ny-jason-doran-hires-teacher-rochester-city-school-19-abusing-special-ed-students-nevada/3282325002/
Will Cleveland and Justin Murphy, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle Published 9:00 p.m. ET March 26, 2019 | Updated 11:43 a.m. ET March 27, 2019
UPDATE 11:11 a.m.: Doran submitted his resignation Wednesday morning, according to RCSD. Read the latest story.
The Rochester City School District last September hired a teacher who had been convicted of abusing special education students in Nevada, the district confirmed Tuesday.
James Doran was hired by RCSD in September 2018 and, until Wednesday, was employed as a special education teacher at Dr. Charles T. Lunsford School 19 on Seward Street in southwest Rochester, earning $48,500 a year, according to district records.
He came from Nevada, where the Clark County School District earlier this year agreed to pay $1.2 million plus attorney's fees to settle a 2016 federal lawsuit accusing him of "a litany of physical and verbal abuses" of children, including mostly non-verbal students with autism.
Doran was also charged with three counts of misdemeanor battery and ultimately convicted of one count, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Parents of three children at Forbuss Elementary School in Las Vegas said their children were physically and verbally abused by Doran during the 2014-15 school year. According to their lawsuit, one of the children "was subjected to a variety of unconscionable abuses, including being pushed and grabbed, having his hands forcefully slapped and hit, and being thrown into classroom furniture."
As a result, the parents said, two of the students began to harm themselves and demonstrate psychological distress. The children suffered various physical injuries, including one instance where one student injured an arm so severely it required a cast, the lawsuit said.
Dr. Charles T. Lunford School 19 (Photo: Will Cleveland/Rochester Democrat and Chronicle)
Doran was given a suspended six-month jail sentence and told to complete community service and "impulse control counseling," the Review-Journal reported.
His lawyer at the time said the case was "extremely blown out of proportion," and that the children hadn't actually been injured.
Doran then was a first-year teacher and mildly autistic himself, according to the lawyer, and intended to resume his teaching career elsewhere, the newspaper reported.
Lack of oversight
An RCSD district spokesman confirmed on Tuesday night that Doran is still employed by the district but would not comment further, including whether he is on leave or still in the classroom.
RCSD has a policy of conducting criminal background checks on all new hires. In Doran's case, a simple Google search would have sufficed.
Three times in the last seven years, the district's own auditor general has pointed to shortcomings in practices and procedures within the human resources office, including loose hiring processes and a failure to monitor for violations.
Last September — the same month Doran was hired at School 19 — Auditor General Anissa Henry-Wheeler reported concerns with the district's hiring practices and monitoring and said, "systems and practices need improvement." Those concerns were noted by Distinguished Educator Jaime Aquino in his report.
James Doran (Photo: Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department)
In 2012 and again in 2014, Henry-Wheeler issued comprehensive audits of the department, repeatedly pointing to a lack of effective oversight, according to documents obtained by the Democrat and Chronicle via Freedom of Information request. Among other things, she found, the district did not check references that job applicants provided and did not always perform drug-testing as required.
She also found that employees' personnel records were often missing crucial information, including results of fingerprinting and background checks. The department has been headed since 2014 by Harry Kennedy.
Background checks of teacher-hires, particularly across state lines, have repeatedly been proven a challenge for districts across the country. A 2016 investigation by the USA Today Network uncovered numerous instances where people were hired to work with children despite major red flags in their history.
WCLEVELAND@Gannett.com
JMURPHY7@Gannett.com
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