A teacher in Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) has been accused of multiple sexual assaults of students, but parents allege the school district is protecting itself instead of students.
“The mandate, the driving philosophy seems to be to protect LCPS at all costs,” Jason Harding, parent of an alleged victim, told ABC 7 News. “It’s not about focusing on students, focusing on the victims.”
Harding and his wife Tumay said they have been dealing with the school district’s Title IX office for 11 months with little to show for it.
Their daughter, along with other female students, brought allegations of sexual assault against a Stone Bridge High School teacher. Stone Bridge is also the location of the rape by a male student identifying as “transgender,” which made national headlines in 2021, bringing a special grand jury investigation into LCPS for its conduct.
After the two reported sexual assaults from this student, LCPS expanded the Title IX office.
According to Mrs. Harding, her daughter texted her saying she would receive a call from the school’s vice principal. “I had it the easiest – the other girls not so much,” she recalled her daughter saying.
Students, parents, and others hold signs outside the Loudoun County school board meeting October 26, 2021, in Ashburn, VA. Loudoun County schools have been roiled with controversy and this is the first meeting after two in-school sexual assaults by the same student. (Photo by Katherine Frey/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“And the vice principal told me, ‘your daughter and two other girls have come to us with allegations against a teacher at the school. But don’t worry, I’ll get her to the cafeteria for lunch,’” Mrs. Harding explained. “And I said, ‘wait, what? What what’s happening? What happened? I don’t know anything about this.’”
The allegations made against the teacher are that he would come up behind the girls to “rub their backs and then rub their shoulders and touch their waists and move them side to side,” and make “sexually suggestive comments.” This teacher has not been fired, but rather is on leave, according to ABC 7.
Mrs. Harding also described what was happening with the girls as a “slow grooming process” from the teacher, as he “would allow them to skip their own classes and come to his class anytime without writing a pass because the pass would, of course, have a trail and he made it easy so that they could be best buddies and that they could come and talk to him and complain about things.”
The Hardings’ slow process through the Title IX office has been one that “is run at a minimum in an incompetent fashion without adherence to standard Title IX policy and done in a very haphazard fashion,” according to Mr. Harding.
The family says it has had to correct errors from the office and hire their own lawyer who has expertise in Title IX. They allege that LCPS refused to open the Title IX inquiry to begin with.
Mr. Harding compared the process to a “corrupt auto insurance company that automatically rejects every claim”:
The most frustrating thing for us is we entered this process assuming they would be advocates for our daughter and would explain to us this policy — and knowing Title IX to have a dedicated Title IX team investigator — we are going to get to the truth of this and that’s the exact opposite of what happened. We got the runaround in so many different circumstances, were provided incorrect policy that they had to later backtrack around, were presented situations where we were giving evidence and didn’t have the ability to review or make any changes with regards to testimony, things of that nature. Only to find out that everybody else, including the accused, was able to go and review and tweak and change things.
Mr. Harding also said that he is “absolutely disgusted” that the teacher still remains employed by LCPS, despite investigations and other allegations.
“So, he’s been on paid vacation essentially for the past year,” the father said. “His contract obviously was renewed in the Fall so they can continue this farce. And it’s appalling to us that he’s still getting paid by the county.”
“He is a predator. God knows how many girls he’s hurt in the past,” Mrs. Harding added. “I found out a girl that was also assaulted by this man a year prior to our children’s assault and harassment and Title IX and HR did nothing about it. They walked him out for a week and he came back in.”
The Hardings are calling for a brand new investigation to start from the beginning and for the alleged perpetrator’s teaching license to be taken away.
Breccan F. Thies is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @BreccanFThies.
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