Review of The Violation of Sarah McDavid

With a title that practically screams "Television Movie!", we see substitute-turned-full-time teacher Patty Duke Astin climbing the steps of the local high school on her first big day (it's just an ordinary-seeming high school, yet she exclaims to the custodian, "It's really something, isn't it?"). What Astin's Sarah McDavid doesn't know is, the school has a high crime rate--with all incidents gone unreported once the fat-cat Dean (Ned Beatty) manages to sweep every bit of scandal under the proverbial rug. This happens to Sarah too, after she's beaten and raped by an outsider during Open House (she rings her classroom's alarm several times, with no answer). Written by committee (or, in this case, Lois Peyser and Arnold Peyser from a treatment by the Peysers and Joan Maeks), nothing in "Violation" feels true. Not Sarah's hesitancy in coming forward, not her sudden shift towards "wave-maker", not the school's handling of the event, and certainly not Sarah's press conference at the finale. The Dean tells Sarah after she makes her impassioned plea for school security, "This is going to take money away from getting new textbooks!" There is no follow-up to Sarah's visit to the police station--and apparently no chance of ever catching the creep who raped her. The goal here was to get Patty Duke Astin up on a soapbox, possibly to qualify her for an Emmy nomination. But any actress could have played this part...and do we really want to see Patty Duke play it?