It’s insane isn’t it? This man had been doing this for a decade when I got there and continued to do it for ten more years. The school even says “Well, we heard rumors but we didn’t think there was anything to it.” They were told. Repeatedly!
As long as we’re slightly OT, this happens with as much frequency with same sex offenders as well. When I was in Jr. High (6th-9th) I stopped dressing out for PE in 8th grade and refused to all through high school. Everyone gave me crap about it. They thought I was just lazy. As an adult I became somewhat of a gym rat and they teased me about it “the kid who couldn’t pass PE now goes to the gym!” Finally somewhere in my mid forties I finally said to my *dad, “Do you know WHY I quit dressing out? The (female) PE teacher would make us open our towels to prove we didn’t have clothes on underneath and then would watch us shower.” To say he was beyond appalled is an understatement. He kept saying, “Why didn’t you tell me?” Well, because I was 13 years old and no one ever explained that kind of thing was wrong. It never occurred to me to say how humiliating and uncomfortable it was even when I was constantly berated for it. They never thought to ask why I wasn’t dressing out. The lesson here is keep talking to your kids and make sure they know they can come to you. If something doesn’t feel right you need to find out why. I was a straight A student that was suddenly, inexplicably failing PE. My parents, bless them, weren’t paying enough attention.
*It was my mom/stepdad who did not listen about the coach. I feel confident my dad probably would have killed him even though the never laid a hand on me specifically.