School board approves new sexual misconduct protocols
The Osceola County School District on Tuesday agreed to revamp its response to sexual misconduct at its campuses, a move praised by advocates nearly a year after a Twitter hashtag became a call to former and current students to share their stories of harassment and assault.
The recommended changes, detailed in a 10-point memo released earlier this month, include measures to make more visible resources for victims of sexual misconduct and establishing a hotline for students to report violations of Title IX, a federal law against sex discrimination. It was unanimously approved, followed
by applause by some in the audience.
The memo also includes appointing trained Title IX coordinators at all public schools who would be tasked with overseeing reports and investigations of sexual misconduct and discrimination along with school district lawyers. Faculty and staff, including social workers and guidance counselors, would also be trained to handle such claims and provide support for victims.
Terry Castillo, the school board member who had discussions with students and advocates to help craft the recommendations, hailed the changes as a student-led initiative.
“This is for our kids,” Castillo told the Orlando Sentinel ahead of Tuesday’s meeting. “They came to us as adults with power to help them, and this is the epitome of why we run for office and why we’re advocates.”
Additionally, school district officials will be tasked with establishing a hotline for students to report Title IX violations. The law would be mentioned on the school district website and in the student code of conduct as a way to make available resources more visible for students and parents. Currently, the school district has a page on its website that allows students to report bullying and threats but nothing to report sexual misconduct.
The school board now has to work to craft and implement policies based on the approved recommendations, which Castillo hopes can be finalized before the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year.
The proposed changes were hailed by the Osceola Coalition for Change, a nonprofit made up of former and current students formed last summer after #AroundOCSA, a Twitter hashtag meant for Osceola County School for the Arts students to share their on-campus experiences, went viral in the community when it was used to share stories of sexual abuse.
Many of the proposals mentioned in the memo were among the demands made by the group and students who participated in focus groups organized
by Castillo and school district attorney Frank Kruppenbacher. The demands, which culminated in a protest at a school board meeting in October, were in response to what activists and students said was part of a perceived lack of response to reports of sexual misconduct in schools.
“We knew from the beginning that the hardest part was going to be the cultural shift because the problem originated in culture,” said Isabeau Tyndall, an Osceola Coalition for Change organizer. “So changing the way the school board views this problem is a step toward that because that will eventually get to changing the way administrators view this and teachers and then eventually students. That’s huge.”
One senior at OCSA who participated in a focus group led by Castillo told the Sentinel in December there is “a gap in education” about what constitutes sexual harassment and assault. In her discussions with students, Castillo said she was alarmed by how many boys voiced concern about the lack of information about sexual misconduct.
But Tuesday’s vote is only the beginning, she added, as she intends to explore education efforts to supplement
the approved protocol changes.
“Our students felt very strongly about having an education component so they better understand what sexual harassment is, what does it look like, what does it feel like, so that they’re able to communicate that it’s happening to them as soon as it is happening to them,” Castillo said. “... So that I think that education piece is the most important thing based on what they asked for.”
The proposed protocols were released ahead of the school board’s April 6 meeting, where it was tabled after board members said they didn’t have time to review them. Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, former Osceola County teacher Dora Díaz said she supportsthe changes. She recalled a moment when she sought help for a student who was a victim of sexual misconduct.
“If I did not ask that student, ‘Hey, are you OK?’ and she wasn’t able to tell me, at least with [the new hotline], she could’ve been able to call and report that,” Díaz said.
The key, however, is establishing trust for those new protocols, organizers said.
“It’s important that they have procedures in place that will make sure
that students know what’s happening with their stories and it isn’t taken out of their control just because they’re minors,” Olivia Tyndall, another organizer with the Osceola Coalition for Change, said. “Especially with the phone number — the only way it can be effective is if students can trust it. So it’s important that [officials] are clear with students about what that phone line is and isn’t.”
School board member Jon Arguello proposed including language in the memo that would exclude transgender students from participating in sports to align with their gender identity. But Kruppenbacher noted the memo makes no mention either way of transgender students in athletics.
“I want to publicly thank the courage of the students who talked to us because some of them told us stuff that was appalling,” he added.
The proposed changes exclude some items pushed by students and activists, such as a proposal to revamp the county’s sex education curriculum, but Castillo said that could be explored in the future.
“I think this is a great first step,” she said. “It’s really a robust policy change, and then hopefully after that, we can go ahead and have further conversations about