Education

Loudoun County Parents Demand Superintendent Resign Over Allegations Of Sexual Assault Cover Up

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• Angry parents in Loudoun County demanded Superintendent Scott Ziegler and other school board members resign over allegations that the Loudoun County Public School school district and its leadership covered up two sexual assaults on two separate school campuses, the Daily Wire originally reported.
• The father of the first alleged sexual assault victim was arrested at a school board meeting on June 22 for “unlawful assembly” for attending the meeting to oppose a transgender student policy that allowed students to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with.
• “The 8040 policy was rushed through to a vote without consideration for the safety of all students, simply to satisfy a liberal agenda – a policy that you knew full well would allow our children to be abused inside our schools,” one mother said at the Tuesday school board meeting, Fox News reported. “At least two young women are recent victims of sexual assaults in our high schools, one of them in a restroom.”

Loudoun County parents used the public comment portion of Tuesday’s school board meeting to call for the resignation of the district’s superintendent over a sexual assault cover-up.

Angry parents demanded Superintendent Scott Ziegler and other school board members resign over allegations that the Loudoun County Public School (LCPS) school district and leadership covered up two sexual assaults on two separate school campuses, the Daily Wire originally reported.

Over 60 concerned parents spoke at the meeting, including many who carried signs encouraging Ziegler’s resignation.

“This is not China, this is the United States of America, and we will not be silenced,” one mother said, Fox News reported. “Remove the superintendent immediately and then resign for your negligence and duplicity. End this nightmare!”

The father of the first alleged sexual assault victim was arrested at a Loudoun County school board meeting on June 22 for “unlawful assembly” for attending the meeting to oppose a transgender student policy that allowed students to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with.

Smith said his ninth-grade daughter was sexually assaulted by a boy wearing a skirt who entered a girls bathroom at Stone Bridge High School on May 28, Fox News reported.

At the same board meeting where Scott was arrested, during the hearing on the transgender student policy, Beth Barts, a school board member, said “our students do not need to be protected, and they are not in danger.” Barts continued, asking Ziegler, “do we have assaults in our bathrooms or locker rooms regularly?”

“To my knowledge, we don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms,” Ziegler responded.

“Have we had any issues involving transgender students in our bathrooms or locker rooms?” school board Chairwoman Brenda Sheridan asked.

“I think it’s important to keep our perspective on this, we’ve heard it several times tonight from our public speakers, but the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist,” Ziegler responded.

Juvenile court prosecutors told Smith that the suspect was under house arrest at his mother’s townhouse, but on Oct. 6, a 15-year-old boy was charged with sexual battery and abduction for forcing a girl into a classroom, where he inappropriately touched her, according to the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office. Smith’s attorney said the suspect is the same boy who attacked Smith’s daughter at a different school months earlier, the Daily Wire reported.

On Aug. 11, the school board voted on and approved Policy 8040, which requires teachers to call students by their “chosen name and gender pronouns that reflect their gender identity without any substantiating evidence” and allows transgender students to participate in sports and use bathrooms that correspond to their chosen gender identity.

“The 8040 policy was rushed through to a vote without consideration for the safety of all students, simply to satisfy a liberal agenda – a policy that you knew full well would allow our children to be abused inside our schools,” one mother said at the Tuesday school board meeting, Fox News reported. “At least two young women are recent victims of sexual assaults in our high schools, one of them in a restroom.”

“What is worse than a child being raped at school? The coverup by those who are trusted with the safety and well-being of children,” another mother said, Fox News reported. “Today, Scott Ziegler must resign for the unconscionable act of allowing an alleged rapist back into school to rape again, and for that coverup.”

One 14-year-old LCPS student, Katie Young, said “8040 and many policies that are being proposed are not to make people more comfortable or to accept others but instead to change the way my peers and I think, so that we will become the next generation of social justice warriors.”

“I am 14 years old, the fact that I have to be here defending my rights to not have your radical agenda shoved down my throat in school is not only concerning, it’s upsetting,” she added. “My peers and I are not tools to further your political agenda.”