Will a bill to protect students from sex abuse by school staff finally pass this year?

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In 2015, Sen. Joan Lovely set out to correct a problem: sex abuse of teens in schools. A decade later, she is still trying to criminalize sexual misconduct by school staff with students who are 16 or 17 years old.

Today, Massachusetts lags behind 39 other states, where laws specifically make it illegal for school employees or anyone in positions of authority in schools to sexually abuse teens. A New Bedford family has gone to federal court alleging their teenage son’s school failed to protect him from abuse.

And with new momentum, lawmakers and advocates hope Lovely’s bill, which would change the age of consent for sexual contact between students and school employees, will pass the legislature this session.

On April 4, Jacob Pothier’s family filed a lawsuit in federal court, alleging that the Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School and its administrators failed to protect their son from an “inappropriate sexual relationship” with an employee. 

Pothier died in a car crash in January 2024, just after his 18th birthday. Kathleen Martins, a former security officer at the school, was also in the car, sustaining serious injuries. Pothier had been in a relationship with Martins, which Pothier’s family said began while she was an employee at the school and Pothier was a student. In the complaint, Pothier’s family allege Martins sexually groomed their son.

This type of grooming is all too common, according to Jetta Bernier, the executive director of Enough Abuse, who helped Lovely draft her legislation. In Massachusetts, individuals can consent to sexual activity once they’re 16 years old. Bernier said that abusive school personnel often groom a child for years so they can begin a sexual relationship once the child turns 16. 

“The pain and heartbreak endured by the Pothier family is inexcusable and must not be allowed to persist,” New Bedford’s Sen. Mark Montigny wrote in a statement to The Light.

Montigny is cosponsoring Lovely’s bill in the Senate, and said he previously drafted legislation to close the same “consent loophole.”

“Beacon Hill should have prohibited this conduct years ago,” Montigny wrote in the statement. “There’s simply no excuse for the legislative inaction and these bills should pass as soon as possible.”

Pothier’s aunt Jennifer Cullen remembers her nephew Jacob as an “awesome kid,” a great athlete and a stubborn boy who loved family time.

“He and I are super fighters,” Cullen said. She said that even though he was a middle child of six, Jacob was “a fierce protector of his siblings. I would have never thought he was at risk.”

Since her nephew’s death, Cullen has been advocating for a change in the law. She says she wants to make sure no one else goes through “the most horrific thing I’ve been through in my life.” She would like to see a more comprehensive version of Lovely’s bill pass. Cullen thinks the bill should also protect high school students over age 18, such as those with disabilities.

“Those vulnerable young adults are not going to be subject to that law, but they’re still in a school,” Cullen said. “They’re still under the jurisdiction of people.”

Lovely’s office confirmed to The Light her the bill would apply to a security officer, like the one allegedly involved with Pothier, because they are in a “position of trust, authority or supervision over a child.”

A bill to protect students

Lovely, D-Salem, has been fighting to eliminate what she calls a loophole for years now. Her bill, titled “an act relative to sexual assaults by adults in positions of authority or trust,” would raise the age of consent for sexual contact between school employees and students to 18. Montigny, a Democrat, is the prime cosponsor of the bill.

The bill would allow judges to impose a jail or prison sentence on school employees for having sex with a student who is 16 or 17. 

Lovely, a survivor of child sexual abuse, said she never ran for office on this issue.

“It wasn’t until I got here … that I was able to find my voice, to be able to really work at this, really peel it back and see how prevalent it is,” Lovely said. “I just want to prevent it from happening to others. It’s just that simple.”

At an April Statehouse briefing on preventing child sex abuse, speakers repeatedly quipped that Massachusetts likes to be first — in education, health care and energy efficiency. But in preventing child sex abuse, they said, Massachusetts lags far behind.

Without laws that do this, advocates say Massachusetts law protects adults who use their authority to sexually abuse students.

Lovely and others have filed various bills on the subject since 2015. 

Bills often die unnoticed and without explanation in the Massachusetts legislature. In 2021, Massachusetts passed just 0.41% of the bills it introduced, which made it the least effective state, according to a 2021 study. Transparency advocates say bills often die in committee on an unclear timeline, with no public information on who is blocking them. 

Rep. Leigh Davis, D-Great Barrington, represents Berkshire County, where multiple former students have accused a teacher at the local Miss Hall’s School of sexual abuse, exploitation and grooming.

Davis, a freshman representative, single parent to three children and a former educator, said she often heard about the high-profile case from constituents on the campaign trail. She spoke with Berkshire County District Attorney Timothy Shugrue, who she said expressed frustration at not being able to pursue charges in the Miss Hall’s case. She approached Lovely about sponsoring a companion bill in the House less than two weeks after winning her general election. 

“I made a promise to myself that if I were to be elected, that the first thing I would do is research into how I can help push this bill along,” Davis said. “Knowing the struggles that Senator Lovely has faced in the legislature, I felt that as a freshman and someone that really has an interest in this case, and also as someone that lives in Berkshire County … I felt that I had to do what I could.”

Passing the bill

Both the House and Senate versions of the bill are assigned to the legislature’s Committee on the Judiciary. In the previous two sessions, Lovely’s bill had its hearing in the same committee, heard testimony — and then stalled. Lovely said she hasn’t heard any opposition to the bill. 

Lovely said sexual abuse in children is “extremely prevalent” — nationally, 20% of all children will experience at least one episode of sex abuse or victimization — but people don’t want to talk about it. 

“They shut down,” Lovely said. And she said this is part of the problem. 

“People are extremely uncomfortable talking about it, thinking about it, thinking that it ever happened in their world,” Lovely said. “They don’t know anybody who that has happened to, where it’s pretty prevalent, and especially in children, because children don’t talk. They don’t reveal it, and if they do, if it does come out, then children feel like they did something wrong.”

New Bedford reps’ mixed opinions on the bill 

New Bedford’s representatives have mixed opinions on the bill. Notably, the city’s Democratic Rep. Christopher Markey opposes the bill because he said it is inconsistent. 

Markey said that the age of consent law assumes 16-year-olds are mature enough to make a decision, and that any law that negates that decision is inconsistent with that assumption and that law. Markey said sex abuse in schools would be better managed by the schools themselves, who should screen the people they hire, and punish relationships with students.

This, according to Bernier, isn’t as easy as it sounds. She has reviewed the policies on sex abuse in Massachusetts schools, and found some to be “wholly insufficient.” Some lack specificity, simply asking that professionals conduct themselves in an “appropriate manner,” and others have no education on what is considered sex abuse and harassment in these cases. 

“It’s not enough for us to wait for these cases to happen and then punish the people who do it,” Bernier said. “If we wait until these cases are identified, because the abuse has gone on, we have failed these children.” 

New Bedford’s Rep. Christopher Hendricks, who served on the judiciary committee in the last session, says concerns about consistency are a major obstacle to the bill. 

Despite his concerns about consistency, Hendricks said he’ll probably co-sponsor the bill. He also said he would support raising the statewide age of consent to 18, to close the “loophole.” 

But, Davis said, raising the age of consent to 18 would be extremely difficult. 

“We’re not trying to make it that youth cannot have sex; we’re trying to protect them,” Davis said. 

Rep. Antonio Cabral said in a statement to The Light that he supports the bill, and legislation that would close the “consent loophole.” Davis’s fellow freshmen reps in New Bedford — Democrats Mark Sylvia and Steven Ouellette — also said they support the bill. 

“Whatever inconsistencies there may be in law, I am confident that those issues can be addressed, so I don’t think that there should be a barrier to putting in place important protections,” Sylvia said. “We have a lot of talent to resolve issues of law, because the underlying issue is protecting young people.”

Cullen’s fight for justice

Cullen, Pothier’s aunt, is advocating for a change in the law. She said she’s run into road blocks trying to get meetings with legislators, even when she went to the Statehouse in person.

Cullen, who lives in Plymouth County, said it’s hard to get a meeting with a legislator who isn’t her representative.

“If you’re really sponsoring a bill that impacts the entire state, you should be willing to speak to anybody,” Cullen said. 

For Cullen, protecting children like Jacob has become her life’s calling. 

“The next step for me is change in the Commonwealth, and I won’t stop until it happens,” Cullen said. “I don’t care if it takes me the rest of my life. It’ll be my aim.”

Abigail Pritchard is a graduate student in journalism at Boston University, covering state government for The Light as part of the Boston University Statehouse Program.

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