US Division of Instruction launches probe into Loudoun County Community Educational facilities above handling of sexual assaults

The U.S. Division of Training (DOE) is opening an investigation into Loudoun County Community Schools about accusations that the district unsuccessful to adequately address reports of sexual assault at two of its schools.
The probe will come immediately after the section acquired a letter in January from the America First Lawful Basis (AFLF) concerning problems that the Northern Virginia school district did not react appropriately to students’ claims of sexual assault as necessary by Title IX.
“This is about shielding learners from sexual assault, and sexual harassment,” AFLF Senior Advisor Ian Prior claimed, in accordance to Fox 5 DC. “And it truly is significant that the politics are taken out of this, and they do a complete investigation to make guaranteed that these issues are remedied.”
Prior’s daughters attended college in Loudoun County Public Educational facilities prior to he moved them to a various college.
LOUDOUN COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT SCOTT ZIEGLER FIRED Immediately after GRAND JURY REPORT ON Handling OF SEXUAL ASSAULTS
The Office of Education is opening an investigation into Loudoun County Community Faculties in excess of fears it failed to appropriately handle reviews of sexual assault at two of its colleges. (STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP by using Getty Visuals)
The DOE’s Place of work for Civil Legal rights will probe whether the district failed to answer as demanded by Title IX to two assaults, committed by the same scholar, in 2021.
An LCPS father accused the district at a June 2021 faculty board conference of covering up his daughter’s sexual assault soon after a organic boy carrying a skirt raped her in the girls’ bathroom in May perhaps of that year. The father, Scott Smith, claimed the district had tried to cover up his daughter’s assault to thrust its controversial transgender toilet plan that experienced sparked parental protests at district faculty board meetings. The coverage had not nonetheless been executed at the time of the assault.
“The U.S. Dept. of Education and learning now declaring that it will investigate LCPS for potential Title IX violations is meaningless,” Smith claimed in a statement to Fox 5 DC. “It’s like the Nationwide School Board, who branded me a domestic terrorist, indicating that they are going now to look into the harm place on my loved ones — it is biased, and the only outcome that the USDOE will arrive to is that Loudoun did every thing appropriate, in purchase to protect it from reality and motive.”
Smith’s mention of the Countrywide College Board Association (NSBA) is in reference to a letter the business wrote to the White House in September 2021 requesting federal guidance to offer with violence and threats from mothers and fathers protesting at faculty board meetings across the region that the business likened to “a type of domestic terrorism and despise crimes.” Lawyer Standard Merrick Garland then issued a memo directing the FBI to address threats towards school officials. The NSBA later apologized for the language utilized in its letter.
“You have to dilemma why now, about a yr later, that suddenly the federal govt is fascinated in this dilemma,” Smith’s assertion ongoing. “Is it to root out wrongdoing or is it actually to make an hard work to secure the wrongdoer, the Loudoun County University Board, that adopted the harmful left-leaning insurance policies that the federal governing administration actively agrees with with regards to the education and learning of our youngsters? Any investigation by the federal division of instruction is an complete farce, and any conclusions it could appear to as totally untrustworthy.”

Mothers and fathers and community associates go to a Loudoun County Faculty Board assembly on June 22, 2021. (REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)
LOUDOUN COUNTY Community Educational facilities BEAR ‘BRUNT OF BLAME’ FOR PREVENTABLE SEXUAL ASSAULT FINDS VIRGINIA GRAND JURY
Immediately after the sexual assault in Might, the suspect was transferred to diverse university in the district and assaulted a further woman in October 2021. The suspect confronted charges in both conditions and was observed guilty of the first sexual assault.
A grand jury report produced in December explained the district was looking out for its own passions around the greatest pursuits of its learners in its dealing with of the sexual assaults, emphasizing that LCPS “unsuccessful at each juncture.”
The report reported LCPS displayed a “gorgeous absence of openness, transparency and accountability, each to the community and to the distinctive grand jury” about its response to the sexual assaults. The report also condemned then-Superintendent Scott Ziegler for denying at the June 2021 school board conference that he had any understanding of the May well assault.
Ziegler had mentioned at the board assembly that “the predator transgender scholar or person just does not exist,” and, to his awareness, “we don’t have any document of assaults developing in our restrooms.” Nevertheless, on the working day of the assault on May perhaps 28, Ziegler knowledgeable school board users in an electronic mail that the assault had been documented.
The school board fired Ziegler days just after the grand jury report.

Former Superintendent Scott Ziegler had denied at a university board conference that he had any know-how of the May perhaps 2021 sexual assault. (Getty)
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According to email messages outlined in the report, senior district officers experienced privately satisfied to examine the initially assault and joined it to LCPS’s transgender policy, which makes it possible for college students to use loos and locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity.
LCPS introduced a statement Monday stating that it “has been given a Notification of Criticism from the United States Department of Instruction Place of work for Civil Rights, and will duly support OCR in this approach.”
“The staff and administration of LCPS continue to be fully commited to generating pupil basic safety and welfare the Division’s optimum precedence. As this investigation relates to issues regarding student privateness, we will not comment additional at this time,” the statement ongoing.