MILL HALL - The most explosive charge to come out of Thursday's Keystone Central School Board meeting was a statement by the mother of Victim 1 - the person who sparked a national inquiry into child abuse in the now infamous case against former Penn State University assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
Dawn Daniels, of Lock Haven, claimed she had proof the district's administrators illegally delayed reporting the abuse to authorities after her son approached the school about the situation.
The claim was diametrically opposed by a following statement by former school board member Steve Murray, who offered a lengthy rebuttal and ardent defense of school administration actions in the aftermath of the initial report.
By now, anyone who follows the national, state or local news stories knows about Dawn Daniels and her son, Aaron Fisher.
Local high school graduate Aaron Fisher, also known as "Victim 1," sparked the investigation into Jerry Sandusky's sexual abuse of young boys.
After the accusations, investigation, prosecution and trial, Sandusky was sentenced last month to at least 30 years in prison - in essence a life sentence - in the child sexual abuse scandal that brought shame to Penn State and led to coach Joe Paterno's downfall.
Local officials have said if the Sandusky situation sparked one positive trend it was highlighting the human cost of child abuse - a heightened awareness that has increased public concern, one that is being translated into new programs designed to combat the scourge and decrease the number of criminal acts.
For Daniels, however, that impact is arriving too little and too late, and she said the negative impact on her family, caused in part by what she claimed were a series of failures on the part of the school district, continue today.
The meeting was highlighted by several residents, including Daniels, speaking to a subject related to child abuse - bullying, which is essentially abuse of one child by another.
"My son was Victim 1 ... He suffered terrible bullying at Central Mountain High School, so much so that I had to move him in his senior year," Daniels said.
She also noted that her other children have faced abusive situations in the school system after the allegations came to light and her son was identified as one of the victims of Sandusky's evil.
"I've heard about kids being turned away" after reporting such abuse, she said. "I'm asking for a thorough investigation ... I have proof that (the mandated reporting law) was not done in a timely fashion ... I feel as a community, everything would have been fine if the people handling our children were there to keep them safe."
Another former school board member, Jerry Swope, also addressed the subject, using his own grandchild as an example. As he has done in several previous board meetings, Swope noted that his grandson was the victim of bullying at school and again used the occasion to argue that the administration was not following its own policies or protecting the youngsters from such abuse.
As for any official response to either the Sandusky episode, to child abuse or to bullying in general, it was virtually nonexistent.
Board President Jack Peters begged off any official reply to the public statements, saying legal considerations prevented the board from comment or specific members from directly addressing specific situations.
Peters said he suspected that some residents might want to talk about specific employees, and the board couldn't publicly deal with such questions, which are commonly handled as "personnel matters" in executive sessions and behind closed doors.
