EXCLUSIVE: Loudoun Schools Did Not Record Multiple Alleged Sexual Assaults Over A Period Of Years Despite State Law, Records Show
Loudoun County Public Schools did not record multiple known incidents of alleged sexual assault in schools dating back several years, despite a law that requires statistics about school safety incidents to be reported to the public and which includes provisions holding school superintendents personally liable for violations, a Daily Wire review of public records found.
After The Daily Wire raised the discrepancy with the Virginia Department of Education, DOE spokesman Charles Pyle said that “VDOE is reviewing the discipline, crime and violence data submissions of Loudoun County Public Schools and is in communication with LCPS to determine whether the division’s reporting is accurate and whether the division is in compliance with state and federal law.”
The same law could have implications for a Loudoun superintendent or principal in the wake of a May 28 alleged sexual assault in a bathroom. On June 22, Superintendent Scott Ziegler told the public, “To my knowledge, we don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms.”
Virginia law requires that “Reports shall be made to the division superintendent and to the principal or his designee on all incidents involving … sexual assault.”
The Daily Wire asked LCPS questions last week including, “Has Stone Bridge ever reported the May alleged sexual assault in any statistics or made anyone aware of it?” LCPS hid behind state law, with Director of Communications Joan Sahlgren replying that “Any information related to student information is confidential under state and federal laws regarding student privacy.”
However, state law actually requires statistics on assaults and other incidents in schools to be reported to the public, in the form of annually updated statistics available on a public database called Safe Schools Information Resource (SSIR) administered by the Virginia Department of Education. LCPS reported to the state that Stone Bridge had zero sexual assaults for the 2020-2021 school year, which includes May 28, 2021.
Virginia law says that “The division superintendent shall annually report all such incidents to the Department of Education for the purpose of recording the frequency of such incidents on forms that shall be provided by the Department and shall make such information available to the public.”
The issue with missing sex assault statistics in Loudoun is not limited to the latest case, raising the prospect that untold numbers of sexual assaults and other infractions have gone unreported.
In October 2018, in a case that was widely reported by the media at the time, three football players
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