Loudoun County School Board won't release investigation report on handling of sexual assaults
The Loudoun County School Board in Virginia voted Tuesday night not to release an independent investigation report into the district's handling of sexual assaults at two of its high schools, which led to the firing of its superintendent and criminal charges.
The school board voted 6-3 not to release the Blankingship & Keith Report, drawing anger from many parents in attendance. Located in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., Loudoun County Public Schools is educating more than 82,000 students in the 2022-2023 school year, according to the Virginia Department of Education.
The report detailed the findings of an independent investigation conducted by the law firm Blankingship & Keith into a May 2021 sexual assault at Stone Bridge High School and an October 2021 sexual assault at Broad Run High School. Both acts were committed by the same perpetrator, a male high school student, against minor female high school students.
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A statement from the school district notes that the board voted "not to waive any applicable privileges" regarding the report following a motion made by board member John Beatty to publicly release the report.
While board members Beatty, Tiffany Polifko and Denise Corbo voted to make the report public, their colleagues Ian Serotkin, Harris Mahedavi, Atoosa Reaser, Jeff Morse, Erika Ogedebge and Brenda Sheridan voted against doing so.
"Being open and transparent is important, but so is the right of our students and staff to be able to communicate with legal counsel without it being made public," Serotkin, the board chair, said in a statement. "Releasing the report would cause a subject matter waiver of every communication everyone in LCPS had with legal counsel broadly related to these incidents over the past year and a half."
"If I could disentangle the release of the report, I would," he continued. "But we cannot."
The sexual assaults at the Loudoun County Public Schools became the subject of national outrage following the October 2021 Daily Wire report detailing the first assault. The first incident occurred in a girls' bathroom at Stone Bridge High School, where the perpetrator reportedly wore a skirt. At the time of the first incident, the district was considering a policy allowing trans-identified students to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity instead of their biological sex.
The student was transferred to Broad Run High School after serving a short period in juvenile detention over the summer of 2021. He committed another sexual assault at Broad Run shortly after arriving there.
While the school district knew about the Stone Bridge High School incident the day it took place, they did not inform Loudoun County parents of what happened. Then-Superintendent Scott Ziegler assured parents concerned about the then-proposed policy that no sexual assaults had ever occurred in girls' bathrooms in the school district. The school board ultimately voted to approve the policy.
Loudoun County Public Schools hired Blankingship & Keith to conduct an independent review of the district's handling of the sexual assaults in October 2021. The report has been available for more than a year, and the school district has consistently declined to release it, citing concerns about attorney-client privilege.
The Loudoun County School Board voted to fire Ziegler late last year following the publication of a grand jury report concluding that the school district "failed at every juncture" to prevent the sexual assaults. Shortly after his termination, Virginia's Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares announced that the grand jury had handed down four indictments against Ziegler and Wayde Byard, the school district's public information officer.
The grand jury report determined that school administrators failed to take action to address the inappropriate behavior of the perpetrator leading up to the first assault and maintained that district leadership presided over "a culture of fear" where "anybody speaking up or daring to speak out of place faces some sort of reprimand."
Ziegler faces "one count of misdemeanor false publication," "one count of misdemeanor prohibited conduct" and "one count of misdemeanor of penalizing an employee for a court appearance." Byard faces one count of felony perjury.
Acting Superintendent Daniel Smith vowed that although the school board voted not to release report, "LCPS will remain focused on continuing to make improvements wherever we can and working toward our goal of empowering each student to maximize their potential and make meaningful contributions to the world."
Scott Smith, whose daughter was the victim of the first sexual assault that took place in a girls' bathroom at Stone Bridge High School in May 2021, reacted with outrage after the board voted against releasing the report.
Video footage of the school board meeting shared by local news outlet WJLA shows Smith condemning the board as "scumbags" and "liars," asking them, "What are you covering up?"
Scott Smith, father of one of the victims at the center of the investigation, scolded Loudoun County School Board members after their vote to not release their investigation into how they handled the two sexual assault cases
— 7News DC (@7NewsDC) February 15, 2023
MORE on the vote fallout here: https://t.co/NA5N2yPKmnpic.twitter.com/LkevKA9Dqe
Speaking to media outlets after the school board meeting, Smith raised concerns about the safety of Loudoun County students.
"How can you send this child to school tomorrow with this school board in charge of your children's safety?" he asked. "How can a parent with any intelligence send your child to school tomorrow? Mine won't be in school tomorrow. Absolutely not."
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
