What many Loudoun parents suspected has now been confirmed : LCPS Superintendent Scott Ziegler and the Loudoun County School Board knew about the alleged sexual assault of a young girl in a Stone Bridge High School bathroom weeks before Ziegler announced at the June 22, 2021 LCPS board meeting that there had been no instances of sexual assault in bathrooms at Loudoun public schools.
An email from Ziegler to the members of the school board, dated Friday, May 28, 2021, at 4:09 p.m., has been released by LCPS. The email confirms that both Ziegler and the members of the Loudoun County school board knew of the alleged sexual assault of a female student by a male student in a bathroom at Stone Bridge High School.
Ziegler’s email says, “Good Afternoon, Board Members, The purpose of this email is to provide you with information regarding an incident that occurred at Stone Bridge HS. This afternoon a female student alleged that a male student sexually assaulted her in the restroom. The LCSO is investigating the matter. Secondary to the assault investigation, the female student’s parent responded to the school and caused a disruption by using threatening and profane language that was overheard by staff and students. Additional law enforcement units responded to the school to assist with the parent. The school’s counseling team is providing services for students who witnessed the parent’s behavior. The alleged victim is being tended to by LCSO. As LCSO is investigating both incidents, further updates may not be available.”
Two and a half weeks after the above email, parents concerned about various issues involving school safety gathered to offer public comment to the school board on June 22. Topping the list of concerns was the controversial proposed Policy 8040, which would allow boys identifying as girls to enter girls’ bathrooms, and vice-versa.
Public comment at the now-famous meeting, at which more than 250 citizens had registered to speak, was shut down by a unanimous vote of the school board after many present in the room clapped and cheered for remarks made by former Virginia Senator Dick Black. Only about 40 registered speakers (I among them) had delivered their remarks before the board ended comment, citing “decorum.” Senator Black’s remarks criticized the proposed transgender policy.
Later in that meeting, the following exchanges took place:
Beth Barts: “Do we have assaults in our bathrooms and our locker rooms regularly? I would hope not, but I would like clarification.”
Superintendent Scott Ziegler: “To my knowledge, we don’t have any records of assaults occurring in a restroom.”
At another point in the meeting:
Brenda Sheridan: “So, my memory, which I think is pretty good on this topic, going back to October 2016 when 1040 was first brought to the board, and did not pass, and then in April of 2019 when it did pass, […] there was a lot of discussion, that we’re having right now, about bathroom use and locker room use and privacy. Have we had any issues involving transgender students in our bathrooms or locker rooms since the passage of 1040?”
(female voice off camera): “Ms. Sheridan, we have not had any issues to my knowledge.”
Brenda Sheridan: “Thank you.”
Superintendent Scott Ziegler: “Ms. Sheridan, could I add to that response?”
Brenda Sheridan: “Sure.”
Superintendent Scott Ziegler: “So, the issue of assaults taking place, or transgender students assaulting other students in the restroom … Time Magazine in 2016 called that a ‘red herring,’ that the data was simply not playing out that transgender students were more likely to assault cisgender students in restrooms than were other students. […] I think it’s important to keep some perspective on this. We’ve heard it several times tonight from our public speakers. The predator transgender student or person simply does not exist. It’s part of, maybe, a misunderstanding of what it means to be transgender, but the data is just simply not playing that out.”
Brenda Sheridan: “Thank you. Ms. Barts?”
Beth Barts: “I appreciate you sharing that. Our students do not need to be protected, and they are not in danger from their transgender peers. And so, that rhetoric is hurtful and false.”
Remember: The above public discussion occurred two and a half weeks after Ziegler sent the email to the board members about the alleged bathroom assault on May 28.
A number of Loudoun parents have expressed concern over the past couple of years that the school board members do not appear to be listening. This phenomenon seems evident to me in the comments from Barts and Ziegler above: Barts and Ziegler focus their arguments against an alleged fear of transgender students. But in my observation, parents have been much more concerned about other opportunists (such as boys interested in girls) who might seek to use the transgender policy to enter into bathrooms of the opposite sex.
What we don’t yet have confirmed in writing is whether Ziegler and/or the school board knew that the alleged male assailant had been wearing a skirt at the time of the May 28 incident. Given the charged and current nature of the current debate over the transgender Policy 8040, I find it stretches credulity to imagine that the “skirt-wearing boy” part of the incident had not reached any of these nine people by the time of the June 22 meeting, let alone the August 11 vote in which the LCPS board finally passed Policy 8040.
One reason I cannot believe that none of them knew about it is that, on June 22, the girl herself bravely took the microphone right outside the LCPS headquarters shortly after the board had ended public comment, and related her experience in fairly clear detail including the detail the boy had been wearing a skirt when it happened. I know, because I was there when she told this.
In fact, I filmed the final small portion of her remarks. I now wish that I had filmed the whole thing; I had refrained because the experiences she was relating were of such a personal nature … I recognized how difficult it must have been to speak in the first place and I did not want to increase that discomfort by holding up my phone to film.
The upshot is that that Ziegler and the Board almost certainly knew about the transgender dimension of the incident ahead of the August 11 vote, and probably (in my opinion) also on the day of the chaotic June 22 meeting.
I have earlier wondered whether the shutdown of public comment itself was motivated by a desire to keep Mr. Smith from speaking out at the meeting in the first place. We may learn in time.
Fight For Schools has today issued the following statement:
“This is an appalling dereliction of duty by Superintendent Ziegler and the Loudoun County School Board.”
“They put politics over the safety of our children, Superintendent Ziegler needs to be immediately fired. And every school board member that knew about this and said nothing to contradict Ziegler’s lies needs to immediately resign, regardless of political party.”