bgrant

Since I was a little girl I always was the one to speak up when something was wrong, take a stand when no one else would, and fight for what was right. Today I continue to battle for the rights of children, women, and minorities by evaluating policy effectiveness and making recommendations to policy makers to better improve the safety, education, and welfare for those who are unable to speak up for what's right.

I feel a strong connection and fondness for Washington DC. Not only is DC the center for our nation's government, it is also a city filled with ambitious people fighting for change. Its not uncommon for a legislator to grab a cup of coffee next to an intern and share a few words- giving everyone in the city the sense of optimism and hope that comes along with new improvements and change.

I am very passionate about the topic of educator sexual abuse (the sexual abuse of k-12 students by school employees) and better protecting student's in the classroom. Researcher's estimate that 9.6% of students will be abused by an employee of a school by the time they graduate from high school (Shakeshaft, 2004). States across the nation have instituted policies to help prevent the sexual abuse of children, but they have not been implemented properly, educational actors are unaware of best practices, and sexual abuse continues to occur at an alarming rate. In addition, there are ineffective reporting systems and barriers to research due to the sensitivity of the topic. My goal is to evaluate the effectiveness of current policies to determine how policies can be improved to better protect students in the classroom. Although the majority of teachers would never want to harm a child, there are too many loopholes in the current system and non-implementation and unawareness of current policies which allows molesting teachers to enter the classroom. However, without evidence to show policy ineffectiveness, policy makers have little incentive to change the current system. My goal is to collect the evidence necessary to document the problem and decrease educator sexual abuse. Every child and family deserves to have someone fighting for better protection and policies.

Up until this last year, I was a committed division 1 athlete and Olympic hopeful for track and field. Battling injury the past couple years I sought to put my dedication into ways that I could improve the community and use my skills as a leader on the field to advocate for those who do not have the voice and confidence that I was given. I started volunteering at a non-profit law firm in Virginia, putting together policy briefs that advocated for a variety of child's rights issues, including educator sexual abuse. After compiling briefs, I would attend Virginia State Department of Education meetings and meet with leading policy analysts to discuss our recommendations. As I completed my Master's of education and started my Ph.D in Educational Research Statistics and Evaluation, I realized very few researchers were studying the prevalence of educator sexual abuse and even fewer were advocating for better policies to protect children. In response to the lack of awareness and attention given to educator sexual abuse, I have spent the past three years completing a master's thesis, an extensive literature review, a pilot study, a dissertation proposal, submitting articles, presenting key issues and advocating for educator sexual abuse issues across the state. After the completion of my dissertation study I plan to testify about the state of educator sexual abuse and work with legislators to better improve our countries prevention, awareness, investigation and reporting practices for dealing with educator sexual abuse cases.