Dozens of parents are demanding the resignation of a Loudoun County superintendent following outrage over claims of sexual assault.
A total of 36 parents expressed concern during Tuesday’s school board meeting over Superintendent Scott Ziegler’s performance, saying he should resign for allegedly overseeing cover-ups of two sexual assaults occurring on school grounds that were facilitated by the school’s transgender policy.
“This is not China. This is the United States of America, and we will not be silenced,” a mother said at the meeting, according to Fox News. “Remove the superintendent immediately and then resign for your negligence and duplicity. End this nightmare!”
LOUDOUN COUNTY RESIDENTS GATHER OUTSIDE SCHOOL BOARD MEETING TO PROTEST TRANSGENDER POLICY
LCPS’s approval of Policy 8040 on Aug. 11, which allows students regardless of their gender into all school bathrooms, was a major point of criticism on Tuesday’s meeting, as board members knew about an alleged sexual assault that occurred in May and still approved the measure.
“The 8040 policy was rushed through to a vote without consideration for the safety of all students, simply to satisfy a liberal agenda — a policy that you knew full well would allow our children to be abused inside our schools,” one mother reportedly said at the meeting, adding Ziegler’s “moral compass is busted,” and he and school board administrators are “complicit in these crimes against our children because you did nothing about it.”
The first incident allegedly took place on May 28, when a ninth-grade female was assaulted in the bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt, according to the girl’s father. The boy was charged with two counts of forcible sodomy, one count of anal sodomy, and one count of forcible fellatio, according to the attorney for the girl’s father.
But at a June 22 board meeting, Ziegler declared “the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist,” and the girl’s father, Scott Smith, was arrested when he insisted at the meeting that his daughter’s story was true.
Michelle Bowman, a public information officer for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, confirmed in an email to the Washington Examiner “a May 28, 2021, case at Stone Bridge High School that involved a thorough 2-month-long investigation that was conducted to determine the facts of the case prior to arrest.” The department is unable to provide documents as the case is pending, according to Bowman.
A second incident occurred on Oct. 6, when a 15-year-old male student forced a female student into an empty classroom and inappropriately touched her, according to the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office. The suspect is being held at the Loudoun County Juvenile Detention Center, where he has been charged with sexual battery and abduction of a fellow student, the sheriff’s office said.
Wade Byard, a public information officer for LCPS, referred the Washington Examiner to the sheriff’s office for comment about the alleged incidents.
“LCPS cooperates fully with law-enforcement agencies in the investigation of alleged crimes on school property and does not comment on pending investigations or legal proceedings,” Byard said.
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School board meetings in Loudoun County have been divisive over the past few months. One teacher resigned on Aug. 11 for refusing to teach lessons on critical race theory, saying she felt she “was a cog” in a “machine” that pushed liberal priorities.
