http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/6236863p-6111960c.htmlParents go after district for rape
LAWSUIT: Six-year-old was assaulted by a classmate at school.
By KATIE PESZNECKER
Anchorage Daily News Published: March 5th, 2005
Last Modified: March 5th, 2005 at 02:24 AM
An Anchorage family says their 6-year-old son was raped earlier this year by a classmate after the two boys were left unattended in a school bathroom for at least 45 minutes.
In a lawsuit filed against the Anchorage School District on Friday in Superior Court, the family asks for monetary damages of at least $100,000 and demands sweeping changes to district policies regarding how students and staff are trained to handle sexual assaults and how students are monitored during the school day.
Attorney Dennis Maloney, representing the family, distributed copies of the lawsuit to media outlets Friday. The suit doesn't name the family or the child's school, to protect confidentiality, Maloney said.
"This incident has had a devastating effect on the child, his father and his mother," Maloney said. "And once you've been assaulted like this, psychologically you throw your guard up and wonder what else is going to go wrong."
The district has 40 days to respond to the lawsuit.
"I will not dispute the fact the incident occurred," Superintendent Carol Comeau said. "A sexual assault did occur. I think the perpetrator has some serious problems that need to be treated and dealt with. That is a very unfortunate incident."
School officials would not say where either child is now attending school but said they are no longer classmates.
Ron McGee, an Anchorage Police Department spokesman, said police investigated the assault.
"We are not going to prosecute a 6-year-old boy," McGee said. "There is no case here, as far as we're concerned. Yes, something happened. But we don't feel it's appropriate to prosecute a child."
According to the Anchorage family's lawsuit, the assault occurred Sept. 14, one week after school started.
The first-grade students had gone to art class. "Some of the kids went to the bathroom on the way back," Maloney said. "These two kids never came out of the bathroom."
The lawsuit says that during the 45 minutes that the two were alone, "Perpetrator No. 1 terrorized, fondled, bullied, sexually assaulted, sodomized and raped Child No. 1."
The boys were still in the bathroom when school ended, Maloney said. The victim's mother arrived to pick up her son and found the classroom empty. The lawsuit said the mother tracked down the teacher and principal, but neither knew where her son was.
"Mother No. 1 started a frantic search for her son in the school, looking in classrooms and calling out his name," the lawsuit said.
The boys heard the mother calling, the lawsuit says: The victim "ran out of a school bathroom terrified -- screaming and crying."
The victim's family retained Maloney, a local attorney who gained attention last school year for representing Anchorage parents who sued the district after the suicide attempt of their son following bullying at his middle school. The district ultimately settled that suit for $4.5 million.
In this case, Maloney said he and the family of the victim met with Comeau and Howard Trickey, the district's attorney.
"We were trying to avoid filing a lawsuit," Maloney said. "We weren't ready to settle. The first thing we wanted was changes."
Specifically, Maloney and the parents wanted a policy in place so students wouldn't be left unattended in bathrooms.
Comeau said she objected to that because she does not believe that a uniform supervision policy applied to all grade levels works.
The suit demands that the district train students, parents and staff members about sexual assault prevention, beginning this year; train school nurses on handling sexual assaults; hire hall monitors to check school bathrooms at 15-minute intervals; and create and implement a system to track students during a school day.
Comeau said these changes aren't necessary.
"I believe in almost every instance, our policies work," Comeau said. "This was a very unfortunate incident and it never should have happened, but it did."
Maloney also faulted the district because the boy who committed the assault had behavior problems at a different Anchorage school the previous year in kindergarten and the information had not been passed on to the new school. The lawsuit cites a "documented history of violent tendencies and acts," saying that the boy's previous school "developed and enacted special procedures and extra supervision" to deal with the child if he returned for first grade.
Comeau confirmed that information was not passed on but added that the boy's behavior at his previous school did not suggest he would commit sexual assault.
"There were some behavior issues but, frankly, they were very typical behavior issues for lots of kindergarten boys," she said.
The district's public affairs office sent an e-mail to all district employees Friday about the lawsuit. The e-mail acknowledged one first-grade boy "sexually molested" another.
The e-mail also said the teacher knew the boys were still in the bathroom when she left them there and told them to "hurry up." Back in the classroom, the teacher "became involved in classroom activities and did not realize that the boys failed to return."
Comeau said the teacher is a competent classroom veteran who hadn't learned all the names and faces in her classroom. It was only the sixth day of class for first-graders and the second day for kindergartners, some of whom were in this classroom, Comeau said.
Comeau said "appropriate actions" were taken toward the teacher regarding the incident but would not discuss details.
The e-mail to district staff said the boy who committed the assault was evaluated and "placed in an appropriate and safe location. He has not been permitted to return to the elementary school where the incident occurred."
Comeau did not say where the boy was attending school, but she said no students are at risk and that she has observed him twice and he appears to be doing well.
"In this case an accident occurred," Comeau said. "The school had a procedure, and that is so important for the public to understand. It was the very beginning of the school year and a wake-up call for all of us that you have to have procedures in place to make sure you know where the kids are at all times. It was just a very unfortunate event."
