This is the Wilmington Standard Daily Update for Thursday February 26, 2026.

A final settlement has been approved by the New Hanover School District for the long-standing disgrace of a teacher named Michael Kelly.  The StarNews reports that the school board approved a 640,000 dollar payout to multiple victims.  This in addition to a 5.75 million dollar payout in 2023.  Mr. Kelly is presently in prison serving a 17 year sentence for 59 felony sex crimes against students. 

Since these incidents came to light, the present Board of Education has overhauled its Title IX framework to clearly define sexual harassment, expand reporting options, and mandate formal grievance procedures and staff training.   The school district is doing all that it can to protect its students from predators.

What the Board of Education cannot address is the role of the family in the risk factor of student victimization.

A 2013 national survey of more than 4,000 U.S. children ages 2 to 17 found that kids not living with two married biological or adoptive parents faced significantly higher rates of almost every kind of victimization—including maltreatment, assaults, peer victimization, and exposure to family and community violence—than those in two‑parent homes. The researchers concluded that this gap was largely explained by higher levels of parental conflict, substance abuse, family adversity, and neighborhood disorder in non‑traditional families, and that children’s exposure to multiple forms of victimization was the single strongest predictor of their mental‑health distress.

Which is why we need to start focusing on families again.  Yet, we continue to expose our children to unstable families – if indeed the family existed in the first place.  Nationally, about 34-35% of children live in single parent homes.  National child‑welfare data show that Black children and American Indian/Alaska Native children – who both top the charts of single parent homes at over 50% -  have the highest documented maltreatment rates.  The state of the family is one of the biggest factors of risk in child abuse by an authority figure outside the home.

The New Hanover County Board of Education is doing its part to stop the abuse of children.  But if moms and dads do not step up, stay married, and strengthen their families – predators like Michael Kelly will always have easy targets.

For the Wilmington Standard, I’m Reuel Sample.  Thanks for listening.