Where Your Children Are massachusetts

Kindergartener brings superhero-stamped bag of heroin to school

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image courtesy Holyoke Police Department

A Massachusetts kindergartener was rushed to the hospital last Thursday after he admitted to teachers that he tasted the contents of the bag he brought to school. Inside the bag, which was stamped with superhero markings, contained a white powder that was later confirmed to be heroin.

Benny Garcia, 29, was arrested later that day, after he was found asleep in his home with 170 bags of heroin around him, as well as bags of cocaine. He’s plead “not guilty” to drug possession and reckless endangerment of a child, when he was arraigned on Friday. The 5-year-old, and an infant sibling, have since been removed from the home. Garcia is being held without bail pending a hearing on November 20.

H.B. Lawrence Elementary School, in Holyoke, MA, is part of Holyoke School District, and serves 285 students in grades K-3. A large majority (91%) of the student population is Hispanic, and 78% of all students qualify as from low-income families. According to GreatSchools, standardized test scores in both reading and math fall way below the state average. The school itself is small and outdated, desperately in need of updating and repairs. The community recently voted down an initiative (which included a property tax increase) to build new schools and take the pressure off some of the smaller, struggling schools.

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Where Your Children Are massachusetts

Former boarding school teacher charged with child rape

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image courtesy Milton Police Department

Thailand has a reputation as a center for child sex tourism and child prostitution. And that’s exactly where accused pedophile Reynold Buono had been living before his recent return to the United States, where he was then charged with child rape of a former student of his.

Buono, who pled not guilty to the charges, once led the theater department for over 10 years at Milton Academy, which is both a boarding and a day school in Milton, Massachusetts. He left the school in 1987, when he was approximately 43 years old, after acknowledging his molesting of a 14-year-old male student (where were the charges, then?). He’s since been living in Thailand for an undisclosed amount of time (some sources say he relocated to Southeast Asia shortly after leaving Milton Academy). American authorities traveled to Thailand last November, and in cooperation with the Royal Thai Police, arrested Buono and brought him back to the United States to face charges.

A private investigation last year revealed that Buono molested at least 12 male students during his tenure at Milton Academy. An attorney representing 5 of them (no word on if charges have been filed, in their case) said Buono did “incalculable damage” to the lives of these students. Court records filed in the rape case said Milton Academy’s headmaster knew Buono was allegedly abusing students as early as 1982 but let him remain on staff after he spoke to Buono’s psychiatrist. It makes one wonder how many other schools have suppressed information related to their staff’s criminal behavior.

Students at Milton Academy can expect to pay upwards of $60,000 a year to attend this school, which asserts that living on its 125-acre campus allows teens to “study and live in supportive, inclusive academic communities where they learn about independence and responsibility in the classroom and beyond.” I’d say a number of students learned way “beyond” what they bargained for, 30 years ago.

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Former Milton Academy faculty member accused of student rapes is held on bail