Loudoun County Public Schools’ bungled response to two sexual assaults has so far led to two indictments and the firing of schools superintendent Scott Ziegler. But those were by no means the only examples of sexual violence being mishandled in the county’s schools. In fact, they appear to be part of a broader pattern, in Loudoun and elsewhere, of K-12 school officials failing to respond effectively to sexual assault and harassment reported by students.

Some didn’t need indictments or a damning grand jury report to know the school system was seriously derelict in its handling of these cases.

“I wish somebody listened to us two years ago, because we were saying the same things,” says Emma Renner, a former LCPS student who founded Be Better Woodgrove. Starting in June of 2020, the group documented sexual assault and harassment at Woodgrove High School and offered recommendations to LCPS officials for how to fix the problems.

Yet almost a full year later, school officials badly botched their response to two sexual assaults by the same student. The grand jury report into the 2021 incidents found “a stunning lack of openness, transparency and accountability” on the part of LCPS administrators, and describes instance after instance where school leadership didn’t appear to take reports of harassment or assault seriously. The Title IX investigation into the first of the two assaults was not opened until after the second one had occurred.

Renner said her group has long pointed out what the report found, “how [LCPS administrators] are looking out for themselves and not looking out for the students.”

“We’ve been trying for years to have somebody hear us as we scream that,” Renner said.

But it’s only since information about the two 2021 assaults came to light — and the political fervor surrounding the school board reached a fever pitch — that the issue has become the focus of community attention and school board discussions about policy reform. Much of the response so far has focused on firings and accountability for school administrators and the school board for their involvement in the mismanagement of the two assaults, with policy ideas to fix systemic issues taking a back seat.

‘It is so much more pervasive’

Renner and Be Better Woodgrove co-founders Emily Horton and Mary Anna Adams, all of whom are survivors of sexual violence in Loudoun county schools, formed the group in June 2020, when they put together a survey for students and recent alumni of Woodgrove to share their experiences with sexual assault and harassment at the school.

The results of their online survey — from just one high school in Loudoun County — are eye-opening. 338 students and alumni said they were survivors of sexual assault or sexual harassment at Woodgrove, and a third reported experiencing four or more types of abuse. 90% said they didn’t feel the school administration had done enough to respond to the experience they reported; nearly 95% said they didn’t think the school was adequately preparing the student body to support survivors or prevent potential attacks. Just 12% of the respondents said they felt comfortable talking with school staff about what happened to them.

“It was overwhelming to see how many people had had all these similar experiences just in Woodgrove High School and just within our online reach,” Horton said. “It’s really scary to think about what that could look like on the Loudoun County full-county scale.”

“There needs to be acknowledgment that it is so much more pervasive than those two cases. And there’s so many more people besides Scott Ziegler that are in power that are holding their interests above the interests of their own students,” Renner said. “It is not this isolated incident having to do with bathrooms. It is a whole culture within LCPS.”

LCPS collects data on reported incidents of sexual assault and harassment, as well as other disciplinary issues, but specific information related to sexual violence –including number of reported incidents–was not immediately available.

The problem is not confined to Loudoun schools. Recently, Fairfax County Public Schools faced two lawsuits criticizing the system’s handling of students’ reports of sexual assault. Between 2015 and 2019, Virginia Department of Education data shows more than 12,000 reported incidents of “sex assault,” which includes sexual assault and harassment, in K-12 schools, according to an analysis by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University. (American University holds WAMU’s license; WAMU was not involved in IRW’s reporting.) This is in a population of a little over 1.2 million students in the commonwealth.

And those numbers come with the context that sexual assaults and harassment are notoriously underreported, whether to school administrators or law enforcement. Nationally, a 2017 study by the National Women’s Law Center found that a quarter of girls ages 14-18 are kissed or touched without their consent. One in four women and one in six men have experienced sexual assault or child abuse in their lifetimes, says Shiwali Patel, a Title IX expert and the Director of Justice for Student Survivors with the National Women’s Law Center.

“The data is imperfect because it’s so underreported, and because schools are not often recording the information,” Patel says. “So that means a lot of student survivors are not getting the help that they need in the aftermath of experiencing sexual violence.”

She also said K-12 schools frequently struggle with the same problems in responding to sexual assault that are documented in the grand jury report, including school employees not knowing when and how to report concerns over student behavior and administrators not knowing how to react to those reports. In addition, school employees often minimize student experiences, and many different levels of school staff and administration are unaware of students’ rights under Title IX and how schools are supposed to uphold them.

“They’re not protecting the students,” Patel says, echoing the grand jury report’s findings. “They’re more worried about litigation and their reputation and how to protect that in the public eye.”

‘Disregarded and invalidated’

With their survey data in hand, Be Better Woodgrove organizers sought advice from survivor advocacy groups like Know Your IX (as in Title IX) and Loudoun Citizens For Social Justice, and they put together a list of concrete policy recommendations — their demands — to help address the problems.

But when they shared their ideas with the Woodgrove principal and the LCPS administration in the fall of 2020, including then-Title IX coordinator Scott Ziegler, who would soon become superintendent, the group says the reception was in line with what their data had taught them to expect: delays and skepticism about their work. Renner says the group’s initial email requesting a meeting with the principal and members of the administration — which she says was forwarded to Ziegler — received no response at all. She says it took a coordinated email campaign from the group’s supporters for LCPS administrators to set up a meeting, and once there, the group says their data and ideas for change were discounted. A subsequent meeting, according to the group, continued the same pattern.

“We were coming to them to say, ‘Listen to these student voices, uplift these student voices. This is how you can effect change. And we are here to work with you to do that,’” Adams recalled. “We were completely disregarded and really invalidated.”

A spokesperson for Loudoun schools told WAMU/DCist meetings with Be Better Woodgrove administrators were “productive,” and “resulted in feedback for Division-wide initiatives to meaningfully address the outlined action items Be Better Woodgrove proposed.” The spokesperson said LCPS administrators had “subsequently met” with organizers to keep them apprised on the system’s progress.

“‘Staying in touch’ and ‘providing updates’ aren’t ways we’d describe the communications we had with LCPS,” Be Better Woodgrove organizers wrote in a follow-up email about the group’s interactions with LCPS officials from August 2020 – May 2021. “They were as opaque as they could be.”

The group provided the then-Title IX coordinator with suggestions on policy 8030, which governs discrimination and harassment, with an eye to adding support for student survivors, and met with the coordinator — who has since been fired — twice in the spring of 2021. They said they were not aware of anything substantive resulting from those discussions.  

Be Better Woodgrove also reached out to members of the school board, and said some were supportive of their ideas — but the board, which was then embroiled in decision-making about reopening schools during the pandemic, didn’t act on a review of that policy until earlier this year.

Complying with existing law 

In developing their demands, Be Better Woodgrove sought help from survivor advocacy groups. They asked for better education around sexuality, as well as a separate yearly third-party training for students about sexual harassment and assault and how to prevent them from happening. They asked the school system to make clear to students exactly what happens if and when they choose to report an incident. They recommended mandatory training for staff on procedures for handling student reports of harassment or assault. They also asked that staff be trained in how to treat survivors during those interactions. Overall, they wanted more resources for survivors, including the possibility for follow-up conversations with staff. And they asked LCPS to change its dress code, which they believed could be a justification for blaming survivors, and to end the practice of required mediation between a survivor and their assailant.

“If a student doesn’t know how to report properly or who to report to or what the reporting process looks like, they’re going to be overwhelmed and scared and uncomfortable,” Horton said. “And if they’re hearing stories from their friends about trying to report and it not going the way that they needed, it’s only going to worsen it.”

Some of the grand jury report’s recommendations similarly center on offering clearer guidance for students and staff when dealing with sexual assault and harassment, Horton points out. The school board reviewed the grand jury’s recommendations and staff suggestions for how to take action on them at a public meeting this week.

Be Better Woodgrove also asked for “a public apology, reflecting on past errors in addressing sexual assault and harassment and holding themselves accountable for change,” Horton says. “Two years out, we’re realizing that we may never get that.”

Be Better Woodgrove’s ideas are in line with what Patel says are best practices for schools in dealing with assault. First and foremost, she says, schools should stop the harassment or assault behavior when it is reported, and then do what they can to “remedy the harm.”

That is, “do what it takes to protect the student survivor, protect their access to education, follow up with them, see if they need counseling. Do they want an investigation? Do they need a stay-away order? Or do they need support from their teachers or in their classrooms?” Patel explains.

Much of that boils down to complying with existing federal law. Protecting a student’s equal access to education in the face of sex-based discrimination, including assault or harassment, is a central point of Title IX, a civil rights law that applies to all K-12 schools and colleges and universities receiving federal funding. Regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Education further elaborate on the steps educational institutions are expected to take in instances of sexual assault and harassment. (Because Title IX regulations are issued by the federal government, they sometimes change from administration to administration. The Trump administration’s rules, which are currently in place, explicitly included “sexual harassment” for the first time, and also added protections for the accused. The Biden administration is currently in the process of creating new Title IX regulations that would add further detail on responding to sexual assault, and also expand the definition of “sex discrimination” to include transgender students.)

The current federal rules say schools should respond promptly, offer survivors supportive measures like class schedule adjustments, and respect survivor decisions about whether or not to enter into a formal complaint and investigation process. They require schools to publish information for students and staff about who the Title IX coordinator is, and what they can expect if they file a complaint, something Be Better Woodgrove has also emphasized. The federal Title IX rules also bar schools from forcing survivors to come face-to-face with assailants — another one of Be Better Woodgrove’s concerns — or answer questions about prior sexual history. In August, the Loudoun school board approved edits to the schools’ Title IX policy and procedures, in line with the federal rules.

An ‘essentially non-existent’ process

LCPS officials have previously said they followed their obligations under Title IX, but the grand jury report found otherwise, citing extensive delays in opening an investigation into the first assault, as well as what the report calls an “essentially non-existent” process overseen by “inexperienced” staff and bickering senior leadership. The family of one survivor of the 2021 assaults has already filed a lawsuit alleging that LCPS failed to follow the civil rights law.

Like Loudoun, Patel said many schools delay Title IX investigations, citing ongoing law enforcement investigations — though the processes are entirely separate. Title IX responses are meant to ensure equal access to education for survivors in the wake of an incident — not to determine if a crime has occurred. She emphasized the importance of promptly opening Title IX investigations, as a means of preventing further wrongdoing and a way of offering continuing support to survivors.

“The law enforcement investigation doesn’t impact the steps that a school can take to support the student survivor,” says Patel, noting things like schedule changes to separate students or extensions on classwork or exams to allow students time to heal.

Patel agrees with the assessment of the grand jury report that suggests LCPS officials could have averted the second assault entirely, had they acted on reports from the first high school more promptly.

“They really missed important opportunities to protect the survivor and to prevent another incident from occurring,” she says.

There’s evidence that LCPS could have done significantly more in the aftermath of the assaults in offering the kind of survivor-centered support Be Better Woodgrove and Patel advocate for. In a statement from the family of the victim in the second assault, they note that LCPS leadership, school board members, and high school leadership have not gotten in touch with the family to offer support in the 14 months since the assault took place.

“The senior leaders at both high schools, along with the Loudoun County Public Schools and the School Board members, should be reminded that our fifteen-year-old daughter displayed more courage and leadership when she reported what happened to her to the Sheriff’s Resource Officer than any of them ever did,” the family said in a statement issued through their lawyer. “The ineptitude of all involved is staggering.”

Beyond the Title IX response to an assault, Patel says, the focus should be on prevention. That might mean a focus on bystander education for the student body or trainings for staff about how to identify or report harassment in compliance with Title IX, both things Be Better Woodgrove has recommended to LCPS.

Overall, Patel says, the important thing is devoting the resources to the problem to show the school community that the school takes sexual violence seriously — and hopefully make survivors feel more comfortable talking with school officials about what happened to them.

Changes to policy

In a Tuesday evening meeting, the school board reviewed the grand jury report and staff recommendations for changes to LCPS policy that would address specific problems evident in the two sexual assaults, including clarifying procedures for transferring students from school to school in the wake of disciplinary issues and committing LCPS to more comprehensive public communication about safety incidents. The board took no immediate action to approve the changes. Typically, policy changes go through a committee review as well as a public comment process that can last months before the full board votes on them.

“I feel it’s important to remind everyone that the actions of this board and LCPS to prevent this from ever happening again did not start today,” said school board Vice Chair Ian Serotkin, who represents Blue Ridge District, in opening comments at the Tuesday meeting.

Serotkin read a list of steps the school board has taken in an attempt to address sexual assault-related concerns in the wake of swelling public outcry, starting in October 2021, when the second of the two assaults investigated by the grand jury occurred.

LCPS hired a full-time Title IX coordinator in March and two deputy coordinators later in the year — a step towards Patel’s point about properly resourcing Title IX investigations. Prior to the most recent hire, the Title IX coordinator held other duties within the school system. The previous coordinator, who was fired earlier in the year, also served as Superintendent Ziegler’s chief of staff, an arrangement Patel called “a conflict of interest,” considering the coordinator’s intended role in holding the school system accountable for its response to harassment and assault incidents.) Officials said the schools would investigate the complaints received during the 2021-2022 school year.

Patel said the practice of not having a full-time Title IX coordinator is not unusual in K-12 schools.

Serotkin’s list also included several required trainings for LCPS administrators on Title IX, starting in November 2021 and continuing through August 2022. A second round of trainings, this time for school-level leaders on Title IX processes, concluded in March 2022, and the schools conducted a third round of trainings this fall. LCPS posts the training materials, provided by the Association of Title IX Administrators, on its website for the public to review. Generally, the materials cover what Title IX is, timelines and strategies for investigating a complaint, and some require participants to think through how to investigate what happened while minimizing retraumatizing students and avoiding biased questions.

In March, the Loudoun school board finished its review and approval of edits to its discrimination and harassment policy, policy 8030 and an associated policy, 8035, which outlines how LCPS handles Title IX-related complaints.

The new draft tasks the superintendent of schools with coming up with “a prompt and equitable grievance process,” that includes “how to file a formal Title IX complaint,” how the schools adjudicate and investigate those complaints, and “the process for offering supportive measures to the complainant and the respondent.”

The corresponding regulation lays out exactly what those procedures are. (The document was updated in August, and was not in force in 2021 at the time of the two sexual assaults included in the grand jury report.) It specifies that LCPS staff should immediately notify their school principal of a student report of sexual assault or harassment. The principal should document the report and then immediately notify the Title IX coordinator, who must tell the student’s parents and also document the report.

Once the Title IX coordinator has determined that the incident could be sexual harassment [OR ASSAULT?], they are required to talk to the student who experienced the harassment and offer supportive services — the regulation includes a long list of them — as well as giving the option of filing a formal complaint. The coordinator is also supposed to provide copies of LCPS’s Title IX regulations.

Once a formal complaint has been filed, the regulation specifies the Title IX coordinator’s responsibilities to keep both the complainant and the accused person apprised of the status of the complaint and the options for resolution. The regulation outlines how the coordinator should conduct an investigation into a complaint and what the final adjudication process and appeal process looks like.

The regulations note school officials can take an accused student out of school on an emergency basis, so long as an individual threat assessment finds that others’ safety is at risk.

The regulation also states that LCPS should resolve formal complaints “within 60 business days,” unless there’s a good reason to extend it (like witness availability, accommodations for language or disability, or “concurrent law enforcement or Child Protective Services activity”).

Be Better Woodgrove provided a handful of comments on the policy and the regulation, primarily aimed at encouraging LCPS to add language about prioritizing the mental health of students affected by such incidents, using words like “survivor-centered” and “trauma-informed.” The group also recommended clarifying that a Title IX response to support a student survivor should happen immediately and independent of any law enforcement investigation. That recommended language does not appear to have been included in the recently revised policy or regulations.

As LCPS administrators, the school board, school leaders, and the county community reckon with the grand jury report and respond to calls for change, the Be Better Woodgrove organizers say they hope everyone listens hard to student perspectives to guide them.

“I know that in order to keep young students safe, it requires centering, uplifting their voices,” says Mary Anna Adams, now an educator herself who is focused on student social and emotional learning. “It’s time that Loudoun County Public Schools shift their focus from protecting adults to protecting students and taking responsibility for wrongdoings and just creating systems that will keep students from getting hurt and preventing future trauma.”