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.

Burke

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.”

pmarcelo@projo.com