Amber Alert Cancelled For Hailey Owens

The Amber Alert from Missouri that was initiated last night for Hailey Owens has been cancelled. It took me awhile to figure out how to write about this, since it she never needed to disappear in the first place, but it seems that the driver of the gold Ford Ranger, Craig Wood, was an athletic coach and a para at Hailey's school. Now; where, in the entire vicinity of the televised airings of the amber alert, have we heard about something like this happening? Just one hop across the state and a couple of hours travel, and Frankfort High School can be observed supplying the same type of school employee with a paycheck for similar dereliction of duty. Granted, the child who was abandoned and left to her own devices on a dirt road in an isolated area four miles away from the nearest town was extremely lucky, and lived to tell about it. Hailey was not so lucky. The Ford Ranger belonged to a school employee, and as soon as it was located at the address to which it was registered, a search warrant was obtained for that residence. Then, Hailey was found; unfortunately, deceased. Why?

There have been rumors that Craig Wood had used different names in the past, but I have seen no real evidence of this. Even so, a school can still conduct a decent background check. Women often change their names when they marry, and many marry more than once. Reasonably accurate background checks are carried out in those circumstances every day. I have even done background checks on potential employees whose backgrounds were mostly not national, and I even had to speak to providers of references in other languages on a few occasions concerning applicants who have not always used surnames. There was no problem, in any instance, performing the background checks. And none of the three companies for whom I did this had any reason as important as teaching or childcare for checking applicants' references. 

Checking references of school employees and weeding out the ones whose past histories contraindicate contact with children is a no-brainer and a requirement on paper in most states and counties. Why aren't we doing it? Why does a teacher with politically well connected parents have free reign to endanger children with impunity? Why does a teacher who graduated from the same school where he abuses and neglects remain employed at that school? Why do "friends" feel like they are doing him a favor by protecting him? Only the shadow knows! And how did a para and athletic coach with drug problems that were unearthed in a matter of minutes by journalists fly under the radar of whoever checked references and ran background checks at the Missouri school? 

Several people have commented about this, stating that the school should not be held responsible in any way. I disagree. Hailey was, most likely, encouraged to trust and respect authority. Children are rarely taught to question authority anymore. Parents who teach their children that valuable lesson are stigmatized and marginalized by "good, upstanding" koolaide drinking school administrators. Life is often hell for the parent who loves his children enough to tell them that teachers, principals, coaches, guidance counselors, and para professionals do not always have their best interests at heart. But; while life is often hell, it would be more hellish to have to say goodbye to a beloved son or daughter because the lesson of questioning authority had not been taught.