by Kendall Tietz
Five former Virginia attorneys general called on the state’s current Attorney General on Monday to investigate the Loudoun County Public Schools board over its handling of the recent sexual assault scandal in the county’s schools.
The five former attorneys general (AGs) questioned the inaction of the state’s attorney general, Mark Herring, over sexual assault allegations in Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) and how they were handled by the school board, according to a memorandum. Former AGs James S. Gilmore, III, Mark Earley, Sr., Jerry W. Kilgore, Robert F. McDonnell and Ken Cuccinelli called on Herring to open an investigation immediately.
“The Loudoun County School Superintendent and the School Board chose not to report two sexual assaults to parents,” the memorandum said. “With this failure, the school system places other girls at risk in Loudoun County and broke reporting regulations.”
Parents and community members have demanded that Superintendent Scott Ziegler and other school board members resign over the allegations that the district and its leadership covered up sexual assaults on two separate school campuses, the Daily Wire originally reported.
The memorandum cited Virginia code, which says parents have a “fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parent’s child.”
The LCPS board initially claimed that it had no knowledge of the sexual assault incidents, but emails later showedZiegler informed board members of the initial sexual assault incident.
“Parents have a right to know when sexual assaults occur in their school systems, yet Democrats push through legislation that told our local school systems not to report sexual assaults,” the memorandum continued. “AG Herring did nothing to stop the legislation during the General Assembly session even though his office reviews and comments on all legislation.”
The former AGs say Herring “should’ve stepped in once the horrific facts surfaced” that the superintendent and school board knew and did nothing about the sexual assault allegations.
“What Loudoun County did here was a determined move to cut out parents and even jail a parent that voiced concern,” the memorandum said. “The actions of Loudoun County and the inaction of the Attorney General demonstrate a pattern of indifference toward sexual assaults in our schools and worse yet, the intimidation of parents that want to be involved in the education and safety of their children.”
The father of the first alleged sexual assault victim, Scott Smith, was arrested at a LCPS board meeting on June 22 for “unlawful assembly” while attending the meeting to voice opposition to a transgender student policy that allowed students to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. Smith’s daughter was allegedly raped in a girls’ bathroom by a male student wearing a skirt.
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