Snow is on its way; Glen Mills fallout continues | Morning Newsletter

Since our colleague Lisa Gartner published her investigation into decades of child abuse at Glen Mills Schools, Philadelphia City Council members and judges from across the country have taken action and many boys are being removed from the school. We caught up with her to find out how she reported these developments and the challenges reporters face when telling difficult stories. This morning we also have a look at the week ahead. Fair warning: it is getting off to a snowy start.

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— Tauhid Chappell and Aubrey Nagle (morningnewsletter@philly.com)

Each week we go behind the scenes with one of our reporters or editors to discuss their work and the challenges they face along the way. This week we chatted with Lisa Gartner about her recent investigation into decades of child abuse at Glen Mills Schools in Delaware County.

You first reported on violence at Glen Mills in August 2018 after a staffer attacked a boy in an incident that was caught on camera. This investigation involved dozens of interviews with current and former students and counselors. Was it difficult to get those involved to talk about their experiences?

It really varied, person by person. Some people were eager to speak out about what happened, hoping it would protect future students. Others, still working through the trauma, needed to take some time to make sure it was the right decision. Interestingly, some of the people I tracked down and approached out of the blue were the most enthusiastic about talking, while others who contacted me were more reluctant. Everyone’s different. The last thing I wanted to do was to talk someone into doing something they were uncomfortable doing, so I was careful and tried to make sure everyone knew exactly what cooperating with the story would look like.

You also utilized internal documents, court records, and incident reports in your investigation. Were any of those publicly available? If so, what is the process like for someone who needs to obtain public records?

Yes. Some of the records I obtained during my reporting were not public, but others were. I looked up court cases online, and followed up by spending a few days going through boxes of legal records at the Delaware County courthouse in Media. This was helpful because some of the cases I wrote about had been settled with parties signing non-disclosure agreements, so the records had to do the talking for them. I retrieved police citations from the local judge’s office. I also read thousands of pages of state inspection reports that are public on the Department of Human Service’s website. I made public records requests to a variety of agencies, including DHS, state police and the U.S. Department of Justice.

What were some challenges you faced in reporting this story, and how did prior experiences help you overcome them?

One of the challenges is that Glen Mills leaders declined to be interviewed. I came up as an education reporter covering public school districts where not responding to allegations is less of an option (although that still happens, of course). But I treated them the same as I’d treat anyone, with as much fairness and transparency as possible. I sent them a comprehensive memo outlining my findings, and gave them a business week to respond. The goal is to have no surprises when they read the story. The whole notion of “gotcha” journalism is so against how investigative reporting really operates.

Gaining trust is a challenge but one that I think is a special privilege of our jobs. I don’t like to ever say “my story”; it’s their story, and I get to tell it. And I better do it responsibly. I try to empathize and listen and just explain to people, especially juveniles and victims, that they are in control of what they share. I go over what I’m going to include from the interview before publication. I ask if they have any questions for me. This is just stuff I’ve picked up along the way. I think when I started in journalism at 22 I could be kind of robotic, I-am-the-reporter-and-you-are-the-subject, here-is-question-one. But we’re all just humans and I think the more I acknowledge that, the better the interviews go.

Where does this story go next?

In response to the story, officials in California, Texas, Michigan and Pennsylvania have decided to remove their boys from Glen Mills. The school stands to lose more than 100 students — more than one-third of its enrollment. In addition, Glen Mills Executive Director Randy Ireson has taken a leave of absence, citing his health, and the president of the school’s Board of Managers resigned. Both the state Department of Human Services and the Delaware County District Attorney are investigating the allegations raised in our story. I’ll be following up on all of this. And there is more material that didn’t make it into the story that I’d like to keep reporting on.

If there’s one thing readers should take away from this investigation, what would you like them to know?

No child deserves to be abused, let alone by an adult who was supposed to help rehabilitate them. It doesn’t matter if the student is there because he committed a crime. Further violence just enforces criminal behavior. I hope people take away from this investigation that taxpayer money is funding child abuse at a school that was supposed to be helping boys. They are victims, and hurting them only makes Philadelphia less safe.

Contact Lisa Gartner on Twitter @lisagartner or via email at lgartner@philly.com.

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