The Palo Alto school district now has more than 20 open investigations into student-involved sexual assault or harassment cases from this school year, board members learned at a special meeting Wednesday.
The bulk of those investigations were reported or logged in May following media reports and public scrutiny of the district’s handling of student sexual violence.
School board members learned of new alleged assaults — documented on a Uniform Complaint Procedure log — during the meeting they called to discuss ongoing Title IX gender-based discrimination cases.
For May alone, the log reflects 18 reports related to Title IX or sexual harassment and assault cases. Nineteen complaints were logged between August and April about potential Title IX violations and other allegations such as harassment involving a protected class or diversity- and disability-based discrimination.
Chief Student Services Officer Holly Wade, who serves as the district’s Title IX coordinator, said that while 18 seems like an extraordinary number of complaints for one month, there’s different aspects to consider.
“It is not uncommon to receive complaints when you have a media presence and a story of assault comes forward,” Wade said. “I would also like to point out that when you see this number of complaints, you have to consider on the other end that students feel safe to come forward, students feel safe to talk with staff.”
Board Trustee Todd Collins said although some might categorize the number of complaints as “unnaturally high,” the vast majority of incidents likely go unreported.
“So when I see 15 in a month, I think that means there are 180 in the year,” Collins said. “That’s a lot of systemic problems that we’ve got to solve. That’s a lot of incidents we’ve got to encourage people to come forward and tell us about.”
Title IX obligates school districts to follow up on bullying and sexual violence allegations. School officials must investigate promptly and thoroughly, independent of a police investigation and regardless of whether a victim requests an investigation.
Of the 18 cases logged in May, three occurred in 2015 and three in 2016.
The majority of cases involve Palo Alto High School students reporting sexual assault or harassment on campus. Some incidents occurred at off-campus events, school-related and not, such as harassment at a student’s job.
The list includes one case of a Title IX allegation between a student and staff member at Gunn High School and another involving a Paly staff member and allegations of gender or age discrimination.
Board members also discussed how to fill the Title IX coordinator position when Wade leaves the district in June.
Superintendent Max McGee recommended contracting with attorney John DiPaolo, who has worked with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, in the interim until the district hires a permanent Title IX coordinator.
McGee said earlier in May that the district will create a new assistant superintendent position to oversee reports of sexual harassment as well as staff training.
As part of Tuesday’s scheduled budget discussion, the board will consider McGee’s proposal to contract with DiPaolo, effective June 12.
If the board doesn’t approve the temporary contract with DiPaolo, McGee suggests having a district official who underwent Title IX training this month fill in.
“One thing we learned … is that this cannot be a vacant position” or else more incidents could fall through the cracks, McGee said.
Board members briefly discussed whether complaints of sexual violence and gender-based discrimination should be investigated solely by district staff or by contracted law firms, or a hybrid of the two as is the case now.
Board Trustee Melissa Baten Caswell shared concerns about the objectivity of staff members in conducting investigations while Trustee Ken Dauber suggested they could handle even more.
Dauber called the use of law firms to conduct investigations a “stop gap” and said staff members ideally are better suited to balance students’ educational opportunities and remedies.
“The district has promulgated regulations for staff to follow that would, if followed, put the district in compliance (with Title IX regulations),” Dauber said. “… This is really about following policies that we already have, and I think that’s the area where there’s been a lot of disappointment.”
Kathy Jordan, a Paly parent, agreed that if district employees had just followed the law there would be no need for expensive law firms.
“Title IX has been the law since 1972,” Jordan said. “Will you pledge to follow the law yourself? If so, will you insist the district and its employees do so as well? This is about student safety and about following the law.”
Jordan said the board’s discussion Wednesday should go beyond how to train staff and fill a position.
“What’s needed is a will and a commitment to this cause, and integrity, and it looks like we’re short on all three,” Jordan said.
In late February, the Palo Alto school board approved an agreement resolution with the Office for Civil Rights that makes it easier for students to report sex-based complaints.
Following a years-long investigation, the federal agency found that the Palo Alto Unified School District had failed to promptly and thoroughly investigate reports that its students were sexually harassed by other students or school employees on multiple occasions.
In at least nine instances between 2011 and 2016, the agency found there was no evidence or documentation that the district investigated reports of sexual assault, immediately acted after receiving reports of sexual harassment or initiated a Title IX investigation as required.
On Wednesday, Board President Terry Godfrey explained various ways the district is striving for greater transparency.
Godfrey said the district will soon have a website with information on sex- and gender-based discrimination reporting, investigation and findings. The district also plans to communicate weekly with the public about ongoing investigations either through meetings or the superintendent’s weekly online note, Godfrey said.
The district has the Law Offices of Amy Oppenheimer working on at least four investigations of incidents of sex, gender or disability-based assaults or harassment, two of which were widely reported by media outlets earlier in May.
In recent weeks, some parents have called for the resignations of McGee and Palo Alto High School Principal Kim Diorio for failing to notify the school community in October 2016 that a female student, 14 at the time, reported a sexual assault in a Paly campus bathroom that month. These parents do not believe the school adequately investigated the matter before allowing the 17-year-old male student to continue attending classes at Paly.
Days after the male student’s accusers came forward in media reports, he elected not to complete the school year at Paly.
His attorney, Stephanie Rickard, wrote to The Daily News: “Although the student in question has been in compliance with all court orders, and the fact that the district attorney’s office has declined to file anything against the student other than consensual underage sexual activity as a result of the conduct on campus, the student has elected not to complete the school year on campus.”
The legal proceedings in this case are not open to the public, so The Daily News has not been able to confirm Rickard’s statement that the charge was only about consensual underage sex, not forced sex.
The male student was found guilty last December in juvenile court of a felony charge of forced oral copulation in a different case that occurred in October 2015 at a church youth group event off campus involving a Menlo-Atherton High School female student who was 15 at the time.
Jorge Quintana, a district spokesman, has said that administrators were aware of the October 2016 incident and “took appropriate disciplinary action.” He said the district is limited by federal privacy laws from alerting the public about the student and sharing how he was disciplined.
After hearing from dozens of parents and students at its May 16 meeting, the school board decided to hire law firm Cozen O’Connor to gather information on how district officials, including McGee, handled recent sexual assault cases. That information will be used in McGee’s performance evaluation later in June, according to the board.
On May 17, the day after the board meeting, another female Paly student emerged to complain about the district’s handling of a Nov. 10, 2015 on-campus assault against her that she describes in a blog post on Medium.com. Her alleged assailant is not the same person as the one in the two other cases.
About the more recent complaint, Quintana said the district “previously resolved the matter, with full cooperation from the parents and students involved, as well as concerned school site personnel, to ensure that the best interests of students were served.
“If it is determined that other sources raise any new information that was not part of the district’s prior review of the matter, the district will fully and promptly investigate the matter according to the provisions of the law, including Title IX and the Office for Civil Rights directives related to the district,” Quintana added.
In the blog post, the student describes attending the May 16 meeting and listening as students and parents expressed their concerns about how the school did not notify them of a possible sexual predator on campus.
She wrote: “I still don’t feel safe on this campus, given what has happened in the past with me, and I want something to seriously change.”
