The Loudoun County School Board voted Tuesday night that it would not release an internal report on how the Northern Virginia school system handled two student sexual assaults at two schools in 2021.
The board cited attorney-client privilege and student privacy in making its decision, a move that angered some parents who have been calling for transparency and for the report to be made public.
The motion to release the independent report that was completed in January failed on a 3-6 vote, with board members Tiffany Polifko, Denise Corbo, and John Beatty supporting its release, The Washington Post reports.
Parents upset with the decision shouted at the school board, NBC Washington reports.
“You are liars. What are you covering up?” yelled the father of the first victim as he stormed out of the meeting.
He went on to question why the board made its move. “What are they hiding in there? They are hiding something big,” the father said. “This school board is corrupt.”
The school board’s move comes after a special grand jury report in December faulted the school system for “a stunning lack of openness.” While the report indicated no evidence of a coverup, it said that administrators missed multiple chances to prevent the second assault.
A special grand jury indicted the school system’s former superintendent, Scott Ziegler, who was fired by the school board. Wayde Byard, a spokesman for the school system, was also indicted.
The teen responsible for the sexual assaults, which took place in a restroom at Stone Bridge High School in May 2021 and in an empty classroom at Broad Run High School in October 2021, remains on supervised probation in a locked juvenile treatment facility until his 18th birthday. A judge made that ruling in the then-15-year-old’s case in 2022, but reversed her decision to register him as a sex offender.
Feature image courtesy pyzata/stock.adobe.com
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