I'm mortified. How Shocking..... no kidding...really, I mean that.....just shocking, I tell you!
Another bus incident stuns Silver Lake
By Mary Salters, Enterprise correspondent
PEMBROKE — For the second time in 15 months, the Silver Lake school district has been rocked by an incident of two teenagers engaging in a sex act on a school bus.
Letters were mailed Tuesday to the parents of the 35 middle and high school students who were riding a bus in Kingston on Friday, when the incident took place between a boy and a girl, both 14, Assistant Superintendent Maurice Splaine said Wednesday.
Splaine said the letter, signed by Silver Lake Regional Middle School Principal Jeffrey Lucove, was mailed because it is the district's policy to keep parents informed about matters that affect their children.
Splaine said school officials became aware of the incident on Monday and letters were mailed the next day to parents.
Authorities said the two were seated together in a bus seat and the girl put her hand down the boy's pants and the two did not believe anyone saw them.
The middle school is located in Pembroke and serves regional students in that town, Kingston, Halifax and Plympton.
Lucove said the matter has been turned over to appropriate authorities for investigation.
Kingston Police Chief Gordon Fogg said, "An investigation was conducted and we did not develop probable cause to believe that any kind of criminal behavior took place.''
Fogg said police will take no further action and the case is closed.
Lucove said the school will take necessary disciplinary actions. He also plans a meeting with James Quinlan, manager of First Student, which provides transportation for students.
Lucove said the two students are banned from riding a school bus for 30 school days, a total of six weeks.
"This is more of an imposition on the parents. The two students live too far away to walk to school,'' said Lucove.
Lucove said he has spoken to the parents of both students involved in the incident and both will undergo counseling. He said both students are embarrassed about the disclosure of the incident.
Officials said the incident became known after two boys tangled in a fistfight on a school bus and were reprimanded by authorities. One of the two students who had been fighting was the one who took part in the sex act.
The second student involved in the fight told school officials about the sex incident, giving officials the names of the two students who had engaged in the act.
Officials believe that had the fistfight not taken place, no one would have known about the act.
The boy who took part in the act is said to have boasted to the student he later had a fistfight with, who then reported it to school officials.
Lucove said Wednesday one of the parents who got the letter called and was very angry.
"She was angry at me. She asked me what kind of a middle school was I running," Lucove said. "I tried to explain that this is a community problem and not just a school problem. We are all in this together. Kids this age are at the most impressionable stage of their lives."
This is the second time Silver Lake students were discovered to have had sex on a school bus.
On Dec. 12, 2002, a 14-year-old junior high school girl was reported to have performed a sex act on a 16-year-old male high school student. Other junior high school students on the bus told their teachers about the incident and the two students were disciplined.
Middle school parent Beth Dwyer, when told about the latest incident on Wednesday, said she was extremely disappointed that the same incident took place yet another time at Silver Lake.
"But this is why I and a lot of other parents drive our kids to school. It's because of what happens on the school bus,'' said Dwyer.
Dwyer, and other parents who did not want to be identified, said parents need to be more firm about what their children wear to school, pointing out that some girls wear thongs and skimpy shirts and shorts. Parents also blame current society and new mores that say anything goes.
"I find it shocking that I'm not shocked. It seems this type of behavior is no longer a big deal,'' said Middle school parent Carol Allen.
"Look at the environment that we have to raise our kids in. Look at what they're exposed to in the media," she said. "Unfortunately, I have to say that, no, I am not shocked.''
