I wish I could say that I’m surprised that a local elementary school teacher has been arrested for possession of child pornography. But I’m not. My heart goes out to the parents at the two elementary schools in North Providence where he teaches as well as to the staff at both schools. State police have ensured the public that that there is no evidence at this time that any students are involved.“

One detail that immediately jumps out about 52-year-old Anthony L. Martin is that he has held tenure in three different states—Florida, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. He has worked in Rhode Island since 1997. While there are plenty of people who have taught in multiple states, myself included, state hopping is a huge red flag when an arrest like this is made.

Martin has been a music and band teacher for over twenty-five (25) years; to include tenures in Providence, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Florida. Martin has been with the North Providence Schools since 1997 and he has taught at both the elementary and middle school level,” state police said in a news release.

Source: State police in a news release.

District hopping and state hopping are extremely common among sexual predators who are also educators because separation agreements are kept secret upon their departure from their prior school. Unions have fought— and continue to fight —tooth and nail for all separation agreements to be sealed. This means that potential employers have no way of knowing if they are about to hire someone who left their previous job—or jobs—because of allegations of sexual misconduct or inappropriate behavior with students. Much like the Catholic Church was found to be moving pedophile priests from parish to parish, sexual predators are able to move from one school to the next because future employers—and parents—are kept in the dark.

When a teacher or other school staff member is finally arrested for sexual abuse, investigators often discover that they have a long history of preying on students in different schools, different cities, and different states.

Here’s an excerpt from a piece I wrote on the issue in 2015:

A teacher in Montgomery County, Maryland was recently sentenced to 40 years in prison on 39 counts of sexual abuse of children in his classroom over the course of almost three decades. His victims were girls in kindergarten through second grade who were photographed and videotaped in sexually suggestive poses and touched inappropriately. He even had the name of one of his victims tattooed on his shoulder. He captioned his photos of the girls with fantasies of molestation.

“Passing the trash” is a well known phrase among child advocates, sexual abuse experts that refers to the cycle of abuse, dismissal, rehire, and abuse again. Some states even have “don’t pass the trash” laws”—Washington state was the first to pass one in 2004 and since then, seven states have followed suit. Those states are Oregon, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Jersey and Maryland.

We should not panic about sexual predators in our kids’ schools, after-school programs, YMCAs, Boys and Girls Clubs or Boy Scout troops. There are 3.2 million teachers in our country and the vast majority of them are not pedophiles or sexual predators. But we also can’t allow ourselves to put our heads in the sand and pretend that sexual predators do not embed themselves in places where they have easy access to children. We should be demanding some basic protections from our state legislatures:

• Every state should have a “Don’t Pass the Trash” law on the books.

• The practice of secret and sealed separation agreements must come to an end.

• It should be a crime in every state for a teacher or other school employee to have a sexual relationship with a student in their care, even after that student turns the legal age of consent. It pains me to admit that we were unable to get that law passed in Rhode Island last year. But parents — who legislators see as voters—didn’t get mad enough.

Teachers Unions have fought—and will continue to fight—all of these protections. We have to fight harder.

It’s a hard day for North Providence Schools. But it’s days like this that should strengthen our resolve reason to show greater determination as parents and as a community when it comes to demanding better protections for our children.