Part two of a two-part series. 
Read part one.
Myrtha Mikel, a Skelly Elementary School counselor, has seen and reported many child abuse cases over the years. SHERRY BROWN/Tulsa World
The stories still break her heart.
But after more than six years, there’s simply been too many to remember them all, said Myrtha Mikel, counselor at Skelly Elementary School.
There was the time when welts covered the legs of a kindergartner. A family member had whipped the student with an extension cord, the child later told Mikel.
There was the time when the T-shirt of a second-grader lifted as the student was playing. Bruises covered the back of the child, who also had been beaten by a relative.
And there was the time when bruises lined the arms of a Skelly Elementary School fourth-grader. A year later, police arrested the student’s stepfather for abusing and molesting the child and the child’s siblings.
Mikel, who declined to give specifics about the cases to protect the students’ privacy, said she can no longer count how many child-abuse cases she’s investigated at Skelly.
Even more frightening, Mikel said, is the number of cases that no one learns about.
“If all the kids came to us that were physically or sexually abused, we wouldn’t have too many kids in our schools,” Mikel said. “That’s how many it is.”
Tulsa
Tulsa schools that reported the most child abuse
Sources: Tulsa Police Department, January 2005 to January 2009
From 2005 through 2008, Tulsa schools reported to police an average of 10.4 cases of possible child abuse each month, a Tulsa World investigation found.
Police found about 75 percent of those calls — 374 over the four years — credible enough to file an incident report, records show.
Child abuse accounted for more incident reports than any other potential crime called in by schools. Most of the reports stemmed from Tulsa elementary schools, which have seen a 34 percent increase in child-abuse reports since 2005.
Within a two-day span in October, for example, Tulsa police took seven reports of child abuse from seven schools, most of which were elementary schools.
Mikel said abuse found by Skelly teachers usually involves children in kindergarten through third grade — a school’s youngest and most defenseless bunch.
“We are the first line of defense for these children,” said Mike Howe, Skelly Elementary School principal. “A lot of parents have trouble in their lives and take it out on their children. That’s a very sad fact.”
Tulsa schools child abuse reports by year
Sources: Tulsa Police Department,
January 2005 to January 2009
Skelly elementary and Foster and Clinton middle schools tied for the most reports of child abuse. Tulsa police filed 16 reports after calls from each school since 2005.
Fifteen calls from Lee Elementary School resulted in an abuse report, data show.
Cindy Taylor, principal at Lee, has seen it firsthand.
A few years ago, Taylor, then principal at Celia Clinton Elementary School, noticed a second-grade girl coming to school with bruises on her arms and legs.
Each time, the girl told teachers that she fell. That was until the child came in with a broken arm. Her dad broke it, the girl said.
“You could see it was a compound fracture,” Taylor said. “It makes me nauseated.”
Broken Arrow
Broken Arrow schools that reported the most child abuse
Sources: Broken Arrow Police Department,
January 2005 to January 2009
In Broken Arrow, only juvenile problems and disturbances resulted in more school-initiated police reports than child abuse, according to a Broken Arrow Police Department database.
Broken Arrow police filed 75 abuse reports following calls from schools since 2005, with Leisure Park Elementary alerting police to the most cases — 10.
Officials at Country Lane Elementary School accounted for three reports during that time.
Christi Sturgeon, the school’s counselor, said usually teachers notice the abuse first. They forward their concerns to Sturgeon and the school nurse if the child is injured.
Sturgeon talks to students about their injuries. She said factors that help determine whether the school calls police and the Oklahoma Department of Human Services include the consistency of the students’ stories, and the frequency and severity of their injuries.
Melanie Ann Smith is led out of the courtroom by Deputy Raelea Spears at Muskogee County Courthouse after her preliminary hearing after being accused with child abuse regarding her 4-year-old son. JAMES GIBBARD/TULSA WORLD
Some bruises, after all, are caused by innocent activities, such as playing sports or rough-housing with friends.
“I do think it’s important to make sure that before I cause a family to have to go through something like having DHS come to their home, to have a credible threat,” said Sturgeon, a licensed therapist.
Sturgeon said that in some years she’s made 15 child-abuse calls to police. In others, she didn’t make any.
Leon Calhoun, a school resource officer for the Broken Arrow Police Department, said he usually documents eight to 10 child-abuse cases each year.
He said most reports come from elementary schools, though it’s not uncommon for middle and high schools to report abuse, as well.
Parents are usually the perpetrators, according to Calhoun’s observations and statistics from the Child Welfare League of America, a nonprofit group based outside of Washington, D.C.
“It’s basically lack of anger control,” Calhoun said. “I’ve had some where the parents just had a lot of stuff going on and they were stressed and a child back-talks them and without thinking, they’ll strike with a fist.”
State Law
All suspected cases of abuse committed against a child younger than 18 must be reported to the DHS, according to state law.
The law specifically mentions teachers’ need to report their observations.
Of the 11,714 child-abuse and neglect cases that DHS validated last year, a total of 869 – more than 7 percent – were reported by schools, an agency report said.
After school officials report the abuse, the situation is largely out of their hands and placed into DHS and sometimes the legal system.
But even detecting the abuse can be difficult, Mikel said. She said students often lie about the cause of their injuries, forcing teachers and counselors to corroborate a student’s story with the child’s friends or siblings.
Still, many refuse to open up.
“They’re scared,” Mikel said. “They’re scared out of their wits to tell. It just breaks your heart.”
Jenks Campus Police Asst. Chief Perry Marler patrols campus Oct. 10, 2008 checking IDs to insure only students and not strangers are on school grounds. DARYL WILSON/Tulsa World
Law requires child abuse notification
Under state law, anyone who suspects a child is being abused or neglected is legally obligated to report the situation to the Oklahoma Department of Human Service or their local DHS center.
Reports can be made at anytime using the Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline: 1-800-522-3511. Callers can remain anonymous but should include detailed information about the abuse. Information includes:
• First and last names of those involved
• Telephone numbers and addresses of those involved
• Time and dates of incident(s)
• Contact information of possible eye witnesses
If a person believes the abuse is ongoing, its recommended that he or she keep a journal to document the incidents.
Along with physical abuse, children could also be neglected. Child neglect includes a lack of parental supervision or protection, malnourishment or poor hygiene.
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