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Abuse at Oak Hill Montessori Community School

The Short Story

In case you are short on time, here is what you need to know:

  • Our child suffered emotional abuse by her teacher, Emily Bowar (LE2)

  • This abuse included isolation and public humiliation

  • This abuse was reported to the school’s Executive Director, Shirley Volk

  • The ED lied to us, and first told us the practices were “unacceptable,” then changed her story and told us she also uses these practices

  • This abuse has been reported to the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE)

  • Ms. Bowar has been reported to the Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB)

  • Ms. Volk has been reported to the Board of School Administrators (BoSA)

  • The school is also denying kids recess, in violation of Minnesota state law

  • The school unenrolled our daughter after we reported the abuse to the state in an act of retaliation, in violation of Minnesota state law

  • If your child was abused, you can file abuse reports here

  • You can voice your displeasure with these practices to the Executive Director and the School Board

Details

Full Story of Abuse and Reporting

Here, you will find the full, detailed story of the abuse our daughter suffered at Oak Hill, at the hands of her teacher, Emily Bowar, as well as how the Executive Director, the School Board, and the Authorizer have all decided to protect a child abuser, rather than help an abused child.

Voice Recordings

Listen to the Executive Director, and others, make excuses and defend child abuse while making up their own definitions of words, and admitting this abuse is not only taking place, but is sanctioned by the Executive Director (and others), despite being banned by school policy and state law.

Paper Trail

Read the emails, reports filed, and responses from the various agencies.

Note: Names of the abused, other families, and non-public emails are redacted for privacy reasons.

“It is morally impossible to remain neutral in this conflict. The bystander is forced to take sides. It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing.
He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain.

The victim demands action, engagement and remembering...

In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator's first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. To this end, he marshals an impressive array of arguments, from the most blatant denial to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalization. After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened, the victim lies, the victim exaggerates, the victim brought it upon herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on.

The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail.”


― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery