Columbia County GA Board Meeting June 14, 2022 (Katie Allen speaking)

Transcript: Remarks-14JUN2022
Last month I found out about Scott Hooker, a teacher that you employed in this school district. I heard from one of his victims, who said that her report fell on deaf ears. I did an open records request, only to find that not only did he admit to touching her in 2017, he was previously reprimanded in writing for a similar incident in 2015. And instead of firing him, you put him in an administrative position away from children. Then you let him be hired by another school district and do it to another child there.
I’ve been speaking for over a year now to fix your library issues, and now this battle is fixing to get personal. When I was stationed in Germany, my daughter went to a Blue Ribbon elementary school. It was the best school there and everyone raved about the teachers-especially my daughter’s first grade teacher. After we moved away, I received a phone call that her teacher was under investigation for touching a girl in her class that year and they wanted my daughter to make a witness statement. I learned that they found pictures of little girls at recess on his phone. I also learned that a student from his past spoke up and said he had touched her as well when she was young. I never heard the final result of that investigation, and I can only hope he never has access to children again.
But then I hear about Scott Hooker, and read how he was allowed to continue working in our schools under your watch, despite multiple documented offenses.
In February 2021, Open Records show a principal emailing herself notes from a principal’s conference stating “We’re going to continue to allow transgender students certain “rights” (restrooms, pronouns, etc) Do not discuss this with staff.” And then we have allegations from August, where a transgender student was reported for peeping at a girl in the bathroom – following a previous report of trying to touch a classmate’s breasts – under your watch. Yet you still have created no policy on who can access which bathrooms and refuse to even have a conversation with the public. You bury the incident as if it never happened.
So at this point you know children are being violated in your schools, and you refuse to do anything about it, other than hide it. You provide sexual books in your libraries and encourage educators to have conversations with students about sexuality (I have open records for that too). By now you should know that pedophiles target professions that give them access to children, and you have turned our schools into a pedophile’s wet dream by giving them ample opportunities to have these conversations with children.
You call yourselves Christians, but you conveniently forget the parts of the Bible about the consequences for sexual sins and harming children. In both Matthew and 1st Corinthians we are told that Christians are expected to keep each other in check. You forgive the sinner, but you never accept sexual sin. First you educate members about their sin. Then you warn them with the help of others if they don’t fix it. But if they refuse, then you kick them out of the church so that their behavior doesn’t spread like a sickness. I’m fixing to go Biblical on you now. You have been educated, you have been warned, and now you need to go. It takes a special kind of person to allow a child abuser to continue working with children, all while providing ample opportunities to talk about sex. But I realize now that you are all very special kind of people.