Horrified Loudoun County Parents Tell School Board: Fire Superintendent Immediately
Any school board member that failed to take action after learning of the first incident needs to tender their resignation now. And more parents need to wake up and demand accountability from their elected representatives.
A group of fed-up parents held a news conference today in front of the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) administrative building. Their message was clear: Superintendent Scott Ziegler needs to go. Immediately.
The parents’ frustration with the school system was evident, as it has been for the past eighteen months. However, things took an alarming turn this week as news emerged that LCPS had ineptly handled a sexual assault allegation at a county high school this past May. The alleged perpetrator was transferred to a different county high school and is alleged to have committed another sexual assault last week at his new school.
In the wake of these revelations, parents, already angered at the school system’s handling of COVID-19 and attempts to introduce Critical Race Theory into the curriculum, were irate. Worse yet, one of their own — the father of the victim in the first case — had been arrested for trying to get answers from the school board. In a letter to the Biden White House, the National School Boards Association even suggested the father was a domestic terrorist.
Ian Prior, Executive Director of Fight for Schools, led today’s news conference. He carefully laid out the timeline of events — a timeline that indicates Superintendent Ziegler was aware of the first alleged incident and failed to take appropriate action to prevent the second alleged incident.
Per Prior:
On May 28th, an incident occurred at Stone Bridge High School. It was described on social media at the time as “an angry dad at the administration office.” Turns out, it was an angry dad. He was there – and angry – because he was called by his wife after a boy allegedly sexually assaulted his daughter in a bathroom.
The police were called, and there was an investigation that led to charges being filed against the alleged assailant. Final adjudication has not yet occurred, but it expected soon.
The alleged perpetrator was given an electronic ankle monitor after his arrest in July. Fast-forwarding to the June 22nd school board meeting, where proposed policy 8040, which allowed boys to use girl’s bathrooms, was being debated and possibly voted on:
While most of the first twenty speakers were supportive of policy 8040, the rest of the two-hundred-fifty-plus people that signed up to speak were largely there to voice opposition to a variety of school board policies and actions, including policy 8040.
One speaker in that first twenty directed her comments to that audience and said she saw the hate dripping from the followers of Jesus and their children. She was booed. Chairwoman [Brenda] Sheridan scolded the audience, recessed the meeting, and when she returned, she gave the speaker back her time.
FACT.
When former senator Dick Black addressed the school board, not the audience, in a fiery opposition to proposed policy 8040, the audience applauded. When Chairwoman Sheridan banged the gavel, they stopped. Nevertheless, they then voted to shut down comment due to “lack of decorum.”
FACT.
The speakers remained in the boardroom. They sang the National Anthem. They gave the speeches they intended to give. Superintendent [Scott] Ziegler then declared an unlawful assembly, despite no apparent threat of public violence, as is required by law for a declaration of unlawful assembly under VA code 18.2-406.
This is where things took a turn for the worst:
One man was arrested for trespass for refusing to leave after the declaration of unlawful assembly. One man was arrested for disorderly conduct after getting in a scuffle with sheriff’s deputies. The video of that has been played on local and national news since that day. In that video, the man’s wife can be heard stating that her daughter was raped in a bathroom in a school. As her husband was being arrested.
The man is named Scott Smith. It is his daughter who was allegedly sexually assaulted in a bathroom in Stone Bridge on May 28th.
And Superintendent Scott Ziegler starts to get himself in trouble:
Later, during that same meeting, without an audience present, Representative [Beth] Barts asked Superintendent Ziegler if there had been a pattern of assaults in bathrooms at LCPS. Ziegler responded he was not aware of a record of any assault in bathrooms. Note that Ms. Barts did not ask if any sexual assaults had occurred in bathrooms. She asked if there was a pattern. Superintendent Ziegler volunteered an answer to a question that he was not asked.
FACT.
Many of us here learned what happened at Stone Bridge, and to whom, in the days that followed. Mrs. Smith actually posted, on June 23rd , to Facebook that her daughter was the victim of a horrific crime at school. It appears this post was discussed a week later in a private Facebook group called “The Anti-Racist Parents of Loudoun County.” The same group that plotted against parents, and which two school board members, Barts and Sheridan, were still members of at the date of the discussion. In other Facebook groups, the alleged assault was discussed before June 22nd.
FACT.
According to a statement from the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, the alleged assailant was arrested on July 8th. The investigation was, thus, concluded.
In a statement yesterday from LCPS, it said the sheriff’s office asked that they not interview witnesses until after the sheriff’s investigation was complete. Therefore, the LCPS was free to conduct a Title IX investigation beginning July 8th.
FACT.
On August 10th, despite massive resistance from the community — based on bathroom safety, a lawsuit, and alleged sexual assault that happened in a bathroom on May 28th – the Loudoun County School Board voted 7-2 to pass policy 8040, which would allow biological boys to use girls’ bathrooms. Representatives [Jeff] Morse and [John] Beatty voted “no.”
FACT.
The same boy that allegedly assaulted the Smiths’ daughter at Stone Bridge was enrolled at Broad Run High School this year. He was wearing an ankle bracelet. Last week, a second alleged sexual assault occurred at Broad Run High School. The commonwealth’s attorney confirmed it was the same suspect that committed the alleged sexual assault at Stone Bridge.
This is every parent’s worst nightmare. The people to whom they entrusted the safety of their children violated that trust through inaction and obfuscation. The dereliction of duty by both the superintendent and school board is stunning, but not shocking, to those of us who live in Loudoun County. Their buffoonery has escalated from laughable ineptitude to dangerous incompetence.
Scott Ziegler needs to be fired immediately. Any school board member who failed to take action after learning of the first incident needs to tender their resignation now. And more parents need to wake up and demand accountability from their elected representatives.
Our kids deserve so much better than this.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
This horrible situation is a microcosm. How many other school boards across our vast nation are operating in such a fashion?
It’s the outrage that’s got everything. Protecting daughters, transgenders, mixed bathrooms, sexual abuse, rape, high-handedness. It’s got everything that the news media uses to get clicks from viewers seeking entertainment.
So now there’s mob action demanding cancellation, only on the right.
I’d wait for a more modest outrage to make a point that sticks, otherwise it’s mob versus mob.
I am reminded of Dr Strangelove where the President objects to the Airforce accidentally sending a nuclear first strike against Russia.
“Mr. President”, replies an offended General Buck Turdgeson. “It is hardly fair to condemn an entire program over one mistake. “
I also remember the line that went something like “You can’t fight in here; this is the war room!”
Reminds me of Biden who can’t answer questions from reporters because its the briefing room.
Actually, the primary focus was CRT and it’s racist indoctrination, but you missed that one in your attempt to put a lefty spin rant on the board.
I had an answer to you all framed out. But then I recalled some sage advice, “Never mud wrestle with a pig. The pig enjoys it and you’ll just get messy.” Course the same applies to wrangling with jackasses.
The pig enjoys it
Are you kidding? The pig enjoys it so damn much he’ll want you to do it again tomorrow.
Government officials allowed rapes, then punished the family for speaking up about it. These people need to be thrown in prison.
It’s about time that normal Americans had their own mob.
Where’s the “metoo,” “believe every woman” crowd?
Crickets.
but these people think the attacker is also a woman, or something
The term “Sexual Assault” covers a multitude of crimes, and often diminishes the impact of what occured in it’s vaguity. The girl was raped by a boy who was allowed into the restroom under school policy. The school created an unsafe situation.
VA requires the compilation and reporting to the public of sexual assault/rape. Both the Principal and Superintendent have an affirmative duty to do so. They have failed that duty. They have, IMO, evidenced a willingness to collude and conceal the required reporting in furtherance of their preferred policy agenda; the institution of non gendered facilities and transgender ideology.
Obviously the revelation of sexual assault/rape by a member of that group would have been detrimental to their policy agenda. They deliberately chose not to follow the law. Consequences and repercussions will hopefully be swiftly imposed.
In the mind of the School Board – advancing their woke ideology is more important than the safety of the kids. A parent whose daughter is raped is therefore ridiculed and arrested.
We have to show them they cannot f*ck with our kids.
And they can pay the price for their folly. As my Father was fond of explaining when I hit my teen years and asserted my independence ‘do whatever your ass can take’ regarding action and punishment.
Not anymore. I read that the Dems just revised that requirement.
No, they must still disclose felonies under the revision. The revision went into effect this year. There are reports that cases as far back as 2018 in this district were not disclosed.
In any event the word is out about something the school board and school officials didn’t want to talk about and parents and community members are understandably PO. IMO, this has the potential to shift the Gov race.
Lord, I hope so!
I do believe the superintendent will be forced to resign at a minimum.
He deserves a harsher punishment, and perhaps that will occur.
Is recall an option in this jurisdiction?
If so, what is the status of the petition to recall the board?
We have elections this year. I do not know how many of the school board from Loudoun is on the ballot.
If the parents of the first victim are justified in suing the board (as a group) and all it’s members (individually) into bankruptcy…….then how far are we willing to let the parents of the second victim go in seeking damages.
Botching a rape and it’s aftermath is bad enough, but when you graduate to releasing a rapist back into another school (where his activities from May were probably not disclosed to the community) with nothing more than an ankle bracelet to prevent him from reoffending? That takes it up a notch or 27.
Let’s pause to take a moment to draw the necessary parallels between this poor, disadvantaged yute (at least that’s where my money is) and Nick Cruz, the Florida school shooter.
The Florida school system was concerned about their “school-to-prison pipeline” statistics. In order to cook their delinquency numbers, they and the cops entered into a confidential agreement under which they would actually suppress evidence of crimes committed by students, at most gigging the student for a minor administrative infraction. This included failure to make crime reports, deleting CCTV evidence trails, and holding stolen merchandise in police custody indefinitely (couldn’t return it to the owners, or questions would get asked about how it was recovered).
As a result, boy, those numbers looked good! …(see first link)… while all the while they were teaching young toughs that there were no consequences for crime.
And then a kid with 39 police interventions on his record (and no real adverse action for any of them because of this “school program”) shot and killed a bunch of people in a spree shooting that would never have happened if the pipeline had carried him to prison where he belonged long before then.
Hide the student crime to make the school system look better. Sound familiar, Loudoun County?
Quick correction. It was not “The” Florida school system but the Broward County School District where the decisions that resulted in Nick Cruz not being called to account for previous episodes. Guess the political make up of the school board? Don’t forget this turning a blind eye took the cooperation of the local sheriff who was suspended by our governor then removed by the Florida Senate for his response to the shooting. Guess his political affiliation?
Despite this the Sun Sentinel (Broward) endorsed Israel for sheriff in the July 2020 primary. Guess what political party?
Do you sense a theme here? My conclusion, even without their gung-ho enthusiasm for ripping the preborn from the womb, voting Democrat is very bad for children.
As horrible as it is for the first victim, it will be the lawsuit from the second victim that will utterly destroy the current school board.
School board members and administrators not following their reporting obligations with respect allegations of rape in order to protect their preferred policies deserve to be former school board members and administrators.
When they fail to protect students and subsequent events happen, they deserve to be broke former school board members and broke former administrators.
Unless, of course, the parents of that second victim turn out to be a pair of those “forgive the offender no matter what he did” cucks.
I hope so Doc.
Covering up a child’s rape and then having the father arrested should lead more than to being fired. The people responsible need to be thrown in prison.
Let’s see..the superintendent and the board appear to be accessories after the fact on the first rape. And direct accessories on the second. Sounds like 2 felonies apiece for the superintendent and any board member who had knowledge of the first rape and knowledge of placing the offender in to another high school.
According to FJB and his lackeys, these parents are Trump cult terrorists. With so many Trump cultists revealing who they are, how can anyone argue that Trump lost the election?
Note the conspicuous and complete absence of any comments by the teachers’ unions which is also heavily invested in grooming and supporting candidates for school boards that will rubber stamp their radical demands
I am struck by the similarity of this to the Tea Party issue of a decade ago, both in terms of how ordinary people are coming together and by the response of the Democrats/government.
If this one is put down the way the Tea Party was, I don’t think there will be a third iteration. As John Kennedy* once said, those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.
* who could not survive as a Democrat today.
The biggest unanswered question: did the Loudoun County Schools participant in Obama era PROMISE (Preventing Recidivism Through Opportunities, Mentoring, Interventions, Support and Education.) program, like Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School ?
this superintendent and these board members are VERY lucky that the second victim was not our daughter
I am struck by the similarity of this to the Tea Party issue of a decade ago, both in terms of how ordinary people are coming together and by the response of the Democrats/government.
____________________________________________________________________
this touches on something more profound and visceral than politics–this is about children–this is about family
whether intended or not, the progs have truly “awoken the sleeping giant “