LINCOLN — Christopher
and Ann Burke have spent the two years since their daughter Lindsay Ann, 23, was murdered by a jealous ex-boyfriend encouraging
high school students to talk openly about unhealthy relationships. Now in an effort to prevent the sort of tragedy the Burke
family suffered, public school districts across the state may soon be required to teach students in grades 7 to 12 about dating
violence, which is a situation where a person uses physical, sexual, verbal or emotional abuse to control his or her dating
partner.
The North Kingstown couple stood beside state Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch yesterday
as he unveiled the Lindsay Ann Burke Act in the library of the William M. Davies Career and Technical Center, a vocational
high school of just over 800 students that has worked with the Burkes to develop such a dating violence program.
“We teach about bullying and sexual harassment in schools,” said Ann Burke. “Now the same needs
to be done to teach about teen dating violence and the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships. It is as important,
if not more important, than any of the other topics we teach in health class.”
The bill
would mandate that each school district devise and implement a dating violence policy and establish guidelines and disciplinary
measures to respond to incidences of dating violence on school grounds.
It would require that
the state Department of Education develop a model dating violence policy by Dec.1, and that school districts develop and submit
to the state their own versions by Aug. 1, 2008. It also mandates that districts train staff members who have “significant
contact with students” about dating violence.
Lynch’s proposed bill, which was introduced
into the General Assembly Tuesday by state Sen. Beatrice A. Lanzi, D-Cranston, and state Rep. Eileen S. Naughton. [D-Warwick],
was referred to the House Health, Education and Welfare Committee and will be considered at a later date.
Middle and high school girls are particularly vulnerable to dating violence, being exposed to three times more abuse
in relationships than adult women, according to Lynch.
But only 33 percent of people who admit
to being in an abusive relationship say they told their problems to anyone else, he said.
“The
unfortunate reality is that many teens think that it is normal,” Lynch said of constant verbal and physical abuse in
relationships. “Education can not only prevent teenagers from being victimized by dating violence but also can empower
students who recognize that the signs are there in their relationships to seek help.”
Christopher
and Ann Burke now know they missed the signs of abuse in their daughter’s relationship with an older man.
There was the boyfriend’s constant calling. His jealously of other men. The possessiveness that isolated their
daughter from family and friends. His free use of her money. And how her caring personality changed as she tried to please
the boyfriend.
“She was always on edge after she started dating him,” said Christopher
Burke. “She was a caring, compassionate woman and that made her the perfect victim. She had a hard time believing she
was being manipulated.”
On Sept. 14, 2005, Gerardo E. Martinez, the 29-year-old Warwick
man Lindsay dated for two years, murdered her in a sudden rage after discovering the photo of another man in her purse. Lindsay
had broken up with Martinez by then.
In his anger, Martinez broke Lindsay’s nose, stabbed
her multiple times in the head and chest, and slashed her throat with a 6-inch knife, depositing her bloodied body in the
bathtub of his Warwick apartment.
A Superior Court jury convicted Martinez of the violent slaying
in January. He will be sentenced on March 30 by Judge Francis J. Darigan Jr. The state is seeking life in prison without the
possibility of parole for Martinez.
The Lindsay Ann Burke Act would make mandatory the type of
health lessons already going on at some public schools in the state, including Barrington, which founded the Katie Brown Educational
Program in the wake of that former student’s death at the hands of a boyfriend in January 2001.
The Davies Career and Technical Center and South Kingstown schools have introduced dating violence courses in the
past two years through the efforts of Christopher Burke, a teacher at Davies, and Ann Burke, a health teacher at the Curtis
Corner Middle School, in South Kingstown.
Davies students spend five days during their one semester
health course discussing dating violence, according to health teacher James Thomas.
Students
talk about the warning signs of abuse, gender stereotypes in relationships, types of love and jealousy, said Thomas. They
also learn about resources out there for people in abusive relationships, such as the National Coalition Against Domestic
Violence.
Issues of dating violence tie in with other issues covered by health classes already
taught, including teen pregnancy, substance abuse, and sexually transmitted diseases, said Burke.
“We
have found here that once the information is out there, it opens all sorts of questions from students and shows that we, as
educators, can help,” Thomas said. “We don’t want them to learn this by trial and error.”
Zainab Gawi, a 15-year-old sophomore at Davies, said that the school’s dating violence lessons showed her that
abuse in unhealthy relationships starts small, but only escalates.
“You believe it is all
fun, like play fighting, but it is a sign, and it can build up to something larger,” she said.
“The
jealously, aggressive behavior, not letting you spend enough time with friends or taking you away from family, I’ve
had boyfriends like that,” said senior Cassandra Barlow, 17. “My friends and I see it all the time, but we never
thought about it before.”
