The criminal charges against two Aberdeen educators for failing to report rape allegations hinge on Maryland’s mandatory reporting laws — rules intended to protect vulnerable people by ensuring reports of abuse and neglect make it to the proper authorities.

Those laws, which all states in the U.S. have a version of, are rarely enforced by criminal prosecution throughout the nation and in Maryland, which only made the failure to report a misdemeanor in 2019. But the educators charged in the Aberdeen case are alleged to have “failed on a really high level,” said Stefan Turkheimer, vice president of public policy for the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.

“Teachers are supposed to have a very clear reporting requirement and reporting instruction on who to report to and why. So when you get a situation like this where that reporting instruction is not followed, it’s kind of shocking,” Turkheimer said. “Their entire job in this place is to educate kids but to [also] keep them safe.”

Aberdeen Police say that the failure to report the rape allegations slowed their investigation, which spanned more than a year until the 17-year-old suspect was arrested in July. Information on that teen’s case, including their name, was unavailable because they are a juvenile. Authorities also arrested Aberdeen Middle School’s former principal, Regina Jones, 44, of Havre de Grace, and a former paraeducator, Tanya Johnson, 56, of Aberdeen, on misdemeanor failure to report offenses in July.

Jones’ attorney, Patrick Seidel, did not return a request for comment; Johnson did not have an attorney listed in court records.

The situation came about during a rocky period of high-profile cases in Harford County, which has become a flashpoint for policy debates, specifically those at the crossroads of crime and public schools. Following a fatal shooting at Joppatowne High School, county officials are working to change other laws regarding the school system’s reporting of students’ criminal charges to parents.

Amid that debate, Harford Board of Education President Aaron Poynton called the Aberdeen case “an extreme exception,” citing that Harford educators are trained on the state’s reporting laws.

Mandatory reporting laws throughout the country related to educators and reporting child abuse are largely similar, but some specifics vary state-by-state. They can also require reporting when the subject of abuse or neglect is a senior or a person with an intellectual disability.

In Maryland, state law places the duty to report on everybody who has reason to believe that a child has been subjected to abuse — including sexual abuse — or neglect.

“It applies to every single person,” said Lisae Jordan, executive director of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault. “You are a mandated reporter, I am a mandated reporter.”

When somebody makes a report to a Child Protective Services agency or law enforcement, the law also requires those departments to notify each other. Many of them have cooperative agreements. Depending on the allegations, agencies will usually coordinate on the “range of approaches” they can take, Jordan said.

The laws are more specific about how health practitioners, police officers, educators and human service workers should go about making their report to authorities, and impose criminal penalties for those who don’t.

The first count against Jones and Johnson refers to a law passed in 2019 that imposed criminal penalties for people acting in their professional capacity if they “knowingly fail” to make a report while having “actual knowledge” of abuse or neglect of a minor. Previous state laws had instituted other penalties, like the loss of one’s professional license, for failing to make a report. They are also charged under a 2013 act that made it a misdemeanor to “intentionally prevent or interfere with the making of a report of suspected abuse or neglect.” .

“These systems exist so that when people hear of a problem, it can be directed to services that can support and protect [the victim] but also so you can actually investigate the problem,” Turkheimer said, also noting that “a lot of times, these situations don’t just affect one person; they affect many people.”

“You want to have a mandatory reporting rule so that people are forced, essentially, to get that person help,” he said.

The rules for educators reporting situations involving minors are pretty clear-cut, though the lines can blur in other situations, like in higher education, when the alleged victim is an adult. There’s also been ongoing controversy over some legislation that would require clergy members to report abuse. Maryland’s mandatory reporting laws make exceptions for clergy members under certain circumstances as well as for attorney-client privilege.