B4 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2021
hensive laws to provide protec-
tion to child victims who testify
against their exploiters, preven-
tion education in schools, and
mandatory training for child wel-
fare and juvenile justice agencies.
To come up with the grades,
Raino and other researchers at
Shared Hope spent more than two
years surveying police, prosecu-
tors, legislators, child welfare
agencies, service providers and
survivors of trafficking. Then
came months of analyzing every
state’s laws to see how they ranked
in the 40 different issue areas
deemed most important in pro-
tecting victims.
Now, they will wait to see
whether the grading system will
again work to galvanize states
into changing their laws. In Mary-
land, the General Assembly recon-
venes on Jan. 12.
[email protected]and with the pressure of the F
grade from Shared Hope, they
may have more momentum than
in previous years.
“When you have national
groups saying, ‘You’re really be-
hind the eight ball here,’ more
people will pay attention,” said
Amanda Rodriguez, who spear-
heads legislative efforts for the
Maryland Human Trafficking
Task Force as executive director of
TurnAround Inc.
Her message is being echoed by
advocates throughout the nation
as states grapple with the new low
grades assigned by Shared Hope.
Alaska, Arizona and Idaho are
ranked lowest, with researchers
pointing to their lack of manda-
tory training for law enforcement
and minimal access to supportive
services for victims. The state with
the highest score was Florida, in
part because of the state’s compre-include protections for children
who are charged with prostitution
or solicitation, but also with non-
violent crimes such as drug pos-
session, trespassing, theft and
fraud, which they might be forced
to commit by the people exploit-
ing them.
“We have to be more compre-
hensive, otherwise these children
will continue to be prosecuted
and criminalized for actions taken
as a direct result of the fact that
they are being victimized,” said
Del. Brooke E. Lierman (D-Balti-
more City), who plans to cham-
pion the bill with Lee, the senator
from Montgomery County.
Although the supporters of safe
harbor may receive pushback
from police and prosecutors wary
of limiting their options, advo-
cates and survivors are hopeful
that with the majority of states
putting similar laws on the books,“They’re every bit of a victim as
everybody else,” Shapiro said. “It’s
the trafficker that should be held
accountable.”Shapiro is among those work-
ing to again try to pass a “safe
harbor” law when the Maryland
General Assembly reconvenes in- They intend for the bill to
mental health support and other
social services they may need.
Although Maryland has suc-
cessfully set up a program to
connect victims with immediate
services so they don’t end up in
juvenile detention facilities, the
state has yet to codify that chil-
dren cannot be punished for be-
ing sold for sex.
Experts say children most often
end up in trafficking when they
are groomed by trusted adults
who persuade them not to dis-
close what is happening to them.
Advocates believe laws that send
trafficked children into the juve-
nile justice system reinforce the
message that “they have done
something wrong and need reha-
bilitation,” said Melanie Shapiro,
the public policy director at the
Maryland Network Against Do-
mestic Violence, a leader in the
state’s anti-trafficking task force.must provide ‘safe harbor’ to
youth victims of human traffick-
ing, not only in words, but in
deeds.”
“Safe harbor” has been an issue
for half a decade in Maryland, as
dozens of other states implement-
ed laws to stop police and pros-
ecutors from charging minors
with prostitution or solicitation.
Such legislation echoed federal
law that says children, unlike
adults, do not have to prove force,
fraud or coercion to show that
they are being trafficked. Any
time a person under 18 is sold for
sex, under the Justice Department
definition, the criteria for traffick-
ing have been met. Rather than
being sent to juvenile detention or
a court system, many argue, the
children should be connected to
medical assistance, safe housing,
REPORT FROM B1
New a nalysis of c hild sex trafficking laws and policies r anks Md. among w orst
“ We must provide ‘safeharbor’ to youth victimsof human trafficking,not only in words, butin deeds.”
Maryland state Sen. Susan
C. Lee (D-Montgomery)PHOTOS BY MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POSTBY BART BARNESGladys M. Stern, who led
Georgetown Day School for 21
years and built its cachet among
private schools in the nation’s capi-
tal, died Nov. 14 at a medical care
center in Pikesville, Md. She was
104.
The cause was complications
following treatment for a kidney
infection, said a son, Michael
Stern.
Georgetown Day School was
opened in 1945 in a small town-
house in what is now Washington’s
Chinatown neighborhood, initial-
ly as an elementary school. There
were 12 students from seven fami-
lies, all of whom wanted a school
that would be racially integrated.
Segregation in public school was
outlawed nine years later with the
Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of
Education ruling, and many
school systems fought or delayed
the decision for years to come.
Mrs. Stern began her associa-
tion with Georgetown Day as a
volunteer tutor in the 1950s while
her son was attending. She was
hired as an assistant to the director
in 1961, then became director her-
self in 1975 after gaining further
experience in hiring, admissions
and budgeting. Over the next 21
years, she presided over a doubling
of students and staff members to
more than 1,000 and boosted its
endowment to a relatively modest
$1.6 million.
When she stepped down in
1996, at the age of 78, Mrs. Stern
was described by The Washington
Post as the “doyenne of private
school directors in the Washington
area.” In the eyes of many parents
and students, she had elevated
Georgetown Day’s standing as a
contender on par with such estab-
lished private schools as Sidwell
Friends, National Cathedral
School and St. Albans School.Over the years, Georgetown Day
was located on Nebraska Avenue,
MacArthur Boulevard and at its
current address, 4200 Davenport
St. NW. Mrs. Stern was a driving
force in the creation of its high
school, which opened in 1971 in a
former hardware store. George-
town Day was never in George-
town, which the founders thought
would be its eventual home.
Philosophically, the school
stressed racial and economic di-versity, and socially, it was infor-
mal: Mrs. Stern was known to her
students as “Gladys.” Teachers
were called by their first names.
Their authority should come not
from an honorific before their
name but from their integrity and
caring in dealing with students,
Mrs. Stern insisted. She was some-
times criticized for being overly
tolerant with difficult students orstaff members.
“I’ve always had a soft spot for
eccentric kids, probably because I
had one myself,” she told The Post.
What limits she set were firm. A
student who brought a gun to
school was expelled.
“He thought it was funny. I
didn’t,” she said. “Asking people to
leave is the hardest thing I’ve had
to do. I know a fault I have ishanging onto people too long....
But I think it’s important to give
students every chance. And if staff
is loyal to the school, the school
should be loyal to them.”
Len Downie, a former executive
editor of The Post, was also a for-
mer board president of George-
town Day. He said he saw Mrs.
Stern as a decisive leader who
ruled “with an iron hand.”Gladys Ruth Meyerowitz was
born in Washington on Aug. 25,
1917, to immigrant Jewish parents
from Eastern Europe. Her father
was a shopkeeper, at times selling
deli food, at times dry goods or
clothing. For a period, the family
lived in Belhaven, N.C.
She graduated in 1938 from
what is now the University of
North Carolina at Greensboro. It
was then a women’s branch of
UNC: White gloves were required
at dinner, and there were week-
night curfews.
In 1947, she married Joshua
Stern, a physicist. He died in 2001.
In addition to their son, of Reister-
stown, Md., survivors include
three grandchildren.
During Mrs. Stern’s leadership
at Georgetown Day, she had a rep-
utation for wanting to be involved
in every major decision affecting
the school.
One was especially delicate: her
own retirement.
School trustees became con-
cerned about finding a replace-
ment as she entered her late 70s.
Downie said he tried to be gentle
and tactful, but Mrs. Stern was not
altogether pleased. She came
around and remained rueful about
her legacy. She would say later:
“Six months after I’m gone, some-
one will say ‘... I saw Gladys yes-
terday.’ And someone else will say,
‘Gladys who?’ ”
[email protected]GLADYS M. STERN, 104
Leader of Georgetown Day was dubbed ‘doyenne of private school directors’
MICHAEL WILLIAMSON/THE WASHINGTON POST
Gladys Stern chats with students Jake Riley, center, and Evan Zatt in 1996. Mrs. Stern began her
association with Georgetown Day as a volunteer tutor in the 1950s while her son was attending.“I’ve always had a softspot for eccentric kids,probably because I hadone myself.”
Mrs. Stern, who sometimes was
criticized for being overly tolerantobituariesmaintenance, said he has been
out of work for weeks: “They laid
everybody off.”
“They shut everything down,”
Robinson added.
“They told us we aren’t getting
back to work until next year,”
Reed continued. “They said they
might call you next year. I’m like,
‘How are we going to make it
from here to next year?’”
On top of the missing income,
Reed said, is the continual fear to
restart normal routines as the
coronavirus continues to give
him and family members anxiety
despite being vaccinated. He said
his son went back to school this
fall and was infected with the
coronavirus not long after.
“Everybody’s hurt financially,”
he said. “I still think it’s mental,
too. They’ve not given the mental
aspect enough attention.”
The gift card served as an
emotional boost, he said, show-
ing him they were not alone in
their struggles and that many are
behind them, providing support.
“It will be a blessing to the
household and help out for a
turkey for Thanksgiving,” Robin-
son said.
“And some desserts for
Thanksgiving,” Reed added.
[email protected]away.”
The experience taught church
officials to take advantage of
their large parking lot, just off
Allentown Road, where on Sun-
day they directed cars into a
drive-through queue that flowed
around the church and into lots
where volunteers handed drivers
cards while security and police
officers directed the cars out.
Some recipients were so grate-
ful, Browning said, that they gave
volunteers 50 or 75 cents back as
their own contributions to the
effort.
Among recipients on Sunday
was Tanika Robinson, 42, and her
fiance Omar Reed, 44, who
picked up a card and headed
straight to a grocery store to buy a
turkey and fixings for Thanksgiv-
ing dinner.
Reed, who worked for Marriott
as a hotel utility steward respon-
sible for equipment cleaning andbefore it relocated to Fort Wash-
ington in 1983, recognized that
giveaways needed to be held
more frequently than just
Thanksgiving and Christmas af-
ter church officials put on a gift
card giveaway just after the pan-
demic began.“We first did it the first Easter
of the pandemic... and at that
time, not a lot of outreach had
been done by most churches be-
cause it was so early in the
pandemic,” said the Rev.
Grainger Browning, the senior
pastor of the church. “So we did
the same thing as today —
$50,000 worth of food gift cards,
and we must have had 2,000
people lined up, and we didn’t
know to use the parking lot. So
they were literally lined up all the
way back to Andrews Air Force
Base, which is about five milessince the spring of last year while
also providing meals and food
boxes in partnership with the
Prince George’s County govern-
ment and local groups such as the
World Central Kitchen. The char-
itable sum is especially notable
because the church has not met
in-person since the pandemic be-
gan, and its 8,000 members con-
tinue to meet virtually. Tithing is
taking place online and with reg-
ularity, according to the church’s
co-pastor.
“It’s because of the giving —
the faithful giving — and the
commitment and consistency of
the Ebenezer AME Church fam-
ily,” the Rev. Jo Ann Browning
said. “I do believe it’s because this
is what they know to do, this is
what they’ve been taught to do
and they see the tangible evi-
dence, not just during the pan-
demic, but that’s been the history
of the church. Ebenezer’s mission
and ministry is always to be
connected to the community and
the needs of the community. We
can’t do everything, but we can
do something.”
Ebenezer AME, a historic Afri-
can American church that began
in the mid-1800s in Georgetown
GIVEAWAY FROM B1
Ebenezer AME Church gives thousands in grocery gift cards
LEFT: People gather to pray
after handing out grocery gift
cards on Sunday outside the
Ebenezer AME Church in Fort
Washington, Md. BELOW: T he
cards are worth $ 50 each. The
church has held more outreach
events since the pandemic has
increased economic struggles.“The need is obviouslymuch greater and youcan tell by the traffic.”
Denise Ross, Ebenezer AME Church
volunteer who handed out cardsFLOORING SALE
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