EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated and revised from an earlier version to provide clarity and remove inadvertent typographical and grammatical errors.
AURORA |After a tumultuous year in the media where the Cherry Creek schools district was the subject of several stories about student sex assaults, the district is changing how it reacts to them, and how they inform the public.
During the previous school year, Cherry Creek School District saw one teacher plead guilty to multiple years of sexual assault on children, two administrators essentially bury accusations against that teacher, and a security guard plead guilty for sexual misconduct with a student.
In the wake of all of this, the district’s new superintendent, Scott Siegfried, worked closely with Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler, along with groups including the Aurora Police Department and the Cherry Creek Education Association, to look a the district’s policies and suggest how best to ensure the actions of someone like Brian Vasquez are reported immediately — including to parents and the public.
Brian Vasquez, a former teacher at Prairie Middle School, pleaded guilty to multiple sexual assault charges against minors in July. And Prairie Principal David Gonzales and Assistant Principal Adrienne “A.J.” MacIntosh were charged with failure to report accusations against Vasquez. They instead led their own investigation, which pressured the victim to recant her accusation, which then led to her suspension from school. She was forced to apologize to her attacker, according to school district reports.
That incident, among others in the district and in the state, led Aurora state Sen. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, to help push House Bill 1269, which requires school districts to announce to parents if staff members have been arrested for certain crimes within two school days of the employee having or waiving a preliminary hearing.
Fields said the inspiration for the bill came from two incidents in Cherry Creek schools, where staff tried to address the allegations administratively.
In particular, Fields highlighted the Vasquez case, where school administrators said they not only didn’t believe or report the allegations after their own investigation, but they made the victim apologize to her attacker.
“Who says that to a 14-year-old girl?” Fields said.
Now, when sex-assault investigations happen, the law requires parents and the public to be informed, she said.
Cherry Creek school officials said the district needed to look closely at the issue before deciding what should be changed.
“We had a difficult year last year with sexual assaults that occurred in the district, Siegfried said. “We had a chance this summer to reflect on that as a leadership team, and really figure out how we can be better. Because that’s always our goal, to be better for kids.
“We could do those (things to improve) but it was important for us to have somebody on the outside, an expert like the district attorney’s office to look in and say that makes sense from my lens, that helps, or that’s not helpful.”
Siegfried said Brauchler and his team sat down and analyzed Cherry Creek policies, protocols and training to try and find ways to improve the system. And both Brauchler and Siegfried believe they’ve created a framework that school districts in the state can follow to bolster best practices when it comes to reporting.
“I don’t want anyone to think this is an anomaly. We could have gone down this road with any of the school superintendents that we have in our jurisdiction,” Brauchler said. “The reason it became something that was even more sensitive for Cherry Creek than other school districts was because of this case that took place over at Prairie Middle School. But this isn’t just a Cherry Creek issue.”
Cherry Creek has added new layers to its reporting system and how staff are trained on the process and legal responsibilities of their positions. That new training includes making its entire school administrative staff go through face-to-face training with Siegfried’s chief of staff and the legal counsel for the district, along with the video training they received in previous years.
The district also added the mandatory reporting process to classroom emergency guides. Every school now has a designated point person for reporting, and there is now a new position on the district level to coordinate reporting.
One thing that came out of the collaboration was simplifying what teachers and staff must do when it comes to reporting a suspicion, whether it is about another staff member, student or a parent. Chris Gallo, chief deputy Arapahoe County district attorney in the Special Victims Unit, said reducing the noise around the process for staff members to report an incident creates a clear pathway for reporting it.
While there are multiple steps a staff member must go through in regards to reporting to different groups, Gallo said staff must be made aware that the first obligation is to report to law enforcement or county human services depending on the incident.
“This is the most important thing. This must get done first. Your responsibility to law enforcement or to human services or to whomever the report has to be made to is 1-A,” Gallo said. “You don’t have to think you have to do these different things right now or do these three thing simultaneously…You have this suspicion, you have a bad feeling something is happening, then x, y, z must happen — not should happen or may happen. Then it’s out of your hands.”
Along with more intense training for staff, Siegfried said the district is running pilot programs at several schools for student training on body safety issues. The programs train on what to do if there ever faced with inappropriate behavior by a staff member or another student. The goal is to have the programs in every school after fall break this year.
Next steps: the state
A major issue that the Cherry Creek group identified when working on new guidelines and training was how districts needed to report data to the Colorado Department of Education. Both Brauchler and Siegfried said there are conflicting guidelines from their perspective in how an incident involving a student should be reported, especially when it comes to a criminal action.
At the end of each school year, districts are to report incidents involving students to the state, from bullying to assault. Yet both leaders said there isn’t clarity in how an incident should be reported if criminal proceedings are ongoing.
But Brauchler said he would work during the next legislative session with lawmakers to give clarity to exactly how school districts need to report this data and when certain criminal charges should be labeled as such.
Siegfried also said the district has updated its reporting software to better and more accurately track Title IX investigations into allegations of bullying or harassment on the basis of sex. Title IX is a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity.
Public now has a right to know
Another major criticism Cherry Creek faced last year was making public incidents that involved staff, including a former security guard at Grandview High School, Broderick Lundie. He has pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a child. Former Superintendent Harry Bull said that after the Lundie case came to light, that he made a personal decision to not announce the incident to save the victim additional trauma.
Fields said it is unequivocal that parent and the community must know when allegations surface.
“When you don’t report, more people can be affected,” Fields said. “This legislation was created so parents aren’t blindly sending their kids into risk. (The law requires school districts) to share information with parents and families who have a right to know, so they can make decisions that are best for their child. ”
Fields sponsored another piece of legislation extending the statute of limitations from 18 months to five years in cases of neglecting to report child abuse. The bill failed, Fields said, due to a lack of agreement from the Colorado Education Association and Catholic Church. But she intends to run the legislation again next year.
“I’m thinking if some child tells you they were sexually assaulted, how do you forget that?” Fields said. “You have to report that. you don’t forget that because it’s hopefully something that doesn’t happen everyday.”
— Staff writer Kara Mason contributed to this story.