Alpine School District enters into resolution regarding sexual harassment charges

The Alpine School District has entered into an agreement to ensure its compliance with school requirements in light of sexual harassment charges involving students and employees in recent years.

In an announcement Thursday, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) said the district discriminated against students based on sex by failing to respond to reports of sexual assault charges.

READ: Alpine School District teacher accused of sexual exploitation of a minor

The charges included failure to investigate or address charges even after they were made to law enforcement officials

Examples of employee-to-student sexual assault allegations in the district include:

• In 2018, a teacher performed a “sexual act” on a student in the teacher’s classroom immediately after school.
  
• In 2019, a former student reported to a district counselor that a teacher had groomed her, inappropriately touched her exposed lower back, kissed her multiple times, and done the same to two other students.

• In 2017, after a parent complained to the district about an employee who hugged and kissed several female elementary school students as they exited the school bus on multiple occasions, the district confirmed this through video footage. 

Apart from the listed incidents, OCR showed that the district involved its Title IX coordinator in only one of 88 reported student-to-student sexual assaults between 2017 and 2020.
In addition, OCR did not find evidence that the district investigated whether the 88 reported incidents had created a hostile environment for the harassed students, as required by Title IX.

OCR also found that the district had reported only one sexual assault even thought the district reported 20 student-to-student sexual assaults during that same year in this compliance review.

“Alpine School District failed to meet its Title IX obligations to protect students from sexual assaults, including by district employees, and operated a broadly noncompliant system for responding to sex discrimination in its schools,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon. “This resolution commits the district now to provide the safe and nondiscriminatory learning environment the district’s more than 81,000 students have deserved.”

The resolution agreement includes:

• Ensuring that the district coordinates all of its efforts to comply with Title IX through its Title IX coordinator(s) moving forward.
• Notifying students, parents, and employees of its designated Title IX coordinator(s).
• Revising Title IX policies and procedures to comply with the Title IX regulations.
• Disseminating a notice of nondiscrimination that complies with the Title IX regulations.
• Training employees and students regarding the district’s Title IX procedures, how to identify what constitutes sexual harassment, and how to report such harassment.
• Reviewing case files for reported incidents of sexual harassment from previous school years to determine if further action is needed.
• Improving its record-keeping system to ensure that records about sexual harassment are created, maintained, and reported.
• Administering school climate surveys to students, parents, and district employees.
• Reporting to OCR on its responses to reports and complaints of sexual harassment during OCR’s monitoring of the resolution agreement.

The full resolution agreement is here.