The Elephant Alliance was formed by two teachers who were fed up with educator sexual misconduct. With little proof beyond anecdotal evidence, they felt students were abused way more frequently than most people thought. And yet, it was the elephant in the room. No one was discussing this enormous issue with teachers. No one was talking about how to prevent educator sexual misconduct.
The frustration of this reality quickly lead to this question: “If no one is talking about this to teachers, why don’t we?”
After thoroughly and voraciously researching the topic, they found the problem of educator sexual misconduct to be even worse than they could have imagined. They discovered failures of the system at every level, from inside school buildings to the federal government.
And yet… if this problem encompassed every member of our society, every single person could, in turn, be part of the solution.
As music teachers, they had a clear starting point. Their research in Illinois confirmed their suspicion that music teachers abuse students at a higher rate than teachers in other subject areas. They wrote their first presentation “The Elephant in the Room: Discussing the Sexual Misconduct Epidemic in Music Education and How We Can Prevent It” for the Illinois Music Education Conference in 2020. This was the first presentation of its kind: speaking directly to educators on how they can keep students safe from educator sexual misconduct.
The room was packed with over 200 educators and the presentation was met with a standing ovation. It could not have been clearer:
Teachers were ready to talk about “The Elephant in the Room.”
Since January of 2020, Patty and Mackenzie have presented all across the country to educators of all subjects, administrators, coaches, police officers, child psychologists, multidisciplinary teams, and college students. Two of their sessions have been featured at conferences with international audiences: virtually at the Crimes Against Children Conference based in Dallas, Texas, and the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago, Illinois.
Their goal: provide specialized information to every step of the broken system.