The D.C. Council gave preliminary approval Thursday to a bill that mandates "universal reporting" of sex abuse against children, making the District the latest jurisdiction to re-examine its laws in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State University.
A D.C. Council member says the city's public school system violated the law by failing to submit an annual report on truancy, an urgent problem among city youth that has led to stricter monitoring and awareness campaigns across the District.
D.C. Public Schools officials failed to report an allegation of child sexual abuse to the Child and Family Services Agency and, instead, retaliated against the Ward 7 activist who alerted them to it, then lied about a report having been made, council member Phil Mendelson says in a letter to Chancellor Kaya Henderson.
D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray has picked a former director of the city's Child and Family Services Agency to again run the department, which is responsible for the welfare of children in the District.
A D.C. Council member rebuked the District's child welfare agency for failing to identify what positions could be cut among the dozens of "memo writers" and "meeting attenders" making more than $100,000 per year, arguing it could free up money for key priorities facing the budget ax.
Union leaders are calling on D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty to reinstate three caseworkers who were fired after four girls' bodies were found on their mother's property.
D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty yesterday held a private meeting with employees of the city's Child and Family Services Agency, two days after firing six agency workers for failing to help four girls found dead last week in a Southeast row house.
The Fenty administration yesterday pledged to reform the city's long-troubled Child and Family Services Agency, a day after the mayor fired six child welfare workers for failing to help four girls found dead last week in a Southeast row house.
D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said yesterday that as many as eight Child and Family Services Agency employees will be fired for failing to help four girls found dead last week in a Southeast row house.
