Parents decry district response
Handling of sexual harassment report in Mechanicville blasted
MECHANICVILLE — Children as young as elementary school age are now reporting sexual harassment from classmates, forcing schools to set up the type of procedures once only offered in college.
Mechanicville school officials are in the middle of their own dispute involving the parents of two girls, with the principal texting one of them that the way officials initially handled a sexual harassment report last fall was “absolutely unprofessional.”
The two girls are still out of school four months later. Their families say the district has not addressed their safety concerns. As a result of the impasse, Mechanicville officials called in Child Protective Services in an attempt to force the two girls who made the report to return to school.
Across the nation, there were 15 times as many sexual harassment complaints in K-12 schools in 2019 than in 2009, according to the U.S. Office of Civil Rights. In 2020, the U.S. Education Department began a new initiative to make sure K-12 administrators and teachers were aware of what they must do under Title IX, the federal law that bans sex discrimination (and ushered in a new era of high school sports for women). Later, federal rules added protections for anyone facing sexual harassment or assault, saying schools must ensure the student can still access their education.
While the details of the remarks that started the Mechanicville matter remain in dispute — the male student has denied making them — the parents of the girls are raising alarms about how the adults handled their children’s report.
After the mother of one of the girls contacted the Times Union recently, the newspaper reviewed police and school incident reports as well as text messages and audio recordings made between the parents and district officials; a reporter interviewed
one of the girls, the parents of both girls, the school principal and the superintendent. The district verified the existence of the ongoing controversy, but disputed some of the assertions the parents are making.
The Times Union has sought to remove all identifying characteristics of the students involved, including the names, ages and grades of the students, as well as the names of the parents. There have been no criminal charges filed in the case. Mechanicville Junior-Senior High School includes grades 6-12, and has roughly 750 students. The case in question involves middle-school-age children.
One of the girls, who spoke to the Times Union by phone with her mother present, said the incident occurred on a school day in October. A fellow student, seated next to her and a friend in class, began to talk to them.
The two girls allege the student told them that he preferred their body type, wanted to rape them in the bathroom and “pop” their breasts while he was holding a piece of wood, according to the reports. One of the girls later told the Times Union the wood was small, like a homemade toothpick.
The girls said in police and school incident reports reviewed by the Times Union that they immediately reported the alleged incident to the nearest teacher.
The staffer sent them to the principal’s office, but the principal wasn’t available, according to reports. They were then sent to lunch, where they said the boy approached them again.
After seeing one of the girls crying, a lunch monitor brought the girls to an assistant principal, the girl said. A female guidance counselor interviewed them, and then they were left in a room alone for an hour, the reports said. While the girls waited, school officials didn’t call in a counselor or try to contact their parents, administrators told the Times Union.
According to the reports, the boy denied to school officials that he had made the offensive remarks. A witness said the boy had made the “pop” statement but had not made any kind of rape threat. The school district issued discipline, then told the girls that the situation had been handled and sent them back to class.
The statements the girls provided in school incident and police reports, shared with the Times Union, correspond to the narrative the girl described to the Times Union.
Under Title IX, every school must have a process by which victims can make an immediate report. Omny Miranda Martone, CEO of the Sexual Violence Prevention Association said after hearing the detail of this dispute that the teacher should have immediately reported what the girls told him.
“Teachers are mandated reporters. People don’t realize that includes childon-child sexual harassment,” said Martone, whose national nonprofit organization works to prevent systemic sexual violence in part through work in colleges and K-12 schools. “It’s more difficult to handle. Teachers should be having training.”
The mother of one of the girls said she had been called when the girls were sent back to class; the mother was told that someone had “said something inappropriate” to her child but that it had been addressed. The school officials offered no details, she told the Times Union.
It wasn’t until later that night, after the girls went home, that their mothers said they were told what happened.
The mother of the girl who spoke to the Times Union said she had been stunned that she hadn’t gotten a fuller account from the school. “Now it’s 10 o’clock at night — the school is closed,” she said.
The next morning, the mother said, she went to school with her daughter to speak to the principal. She learned the boy had been disciplined. The Times Union is not providing details of the discipline in order to further protect the boy’s privacy. The mother of one of the girls, however, said she wanted a written safety plan.
“We felt very uncomfortable with sending them back to school until we had a plan for their safety: I’m scared, my daughter’s scared,” she said.
Later that day, the junior-senior high school principal texted her an apology.
“Most importantly I apologize for the position I put your daughters in yesterday. It’s absolutely unprofessional and I feel terrible that appropriate communication wasn’t made,” wrote Principal Mike Mitchell, who authenticated the text to the Times Union.
Mechanicville Superintendent Kevin Kolakowski said in an interview with the newspaper that, in general, the district’s policy is to listen to victims immediately and offer counseling while taking steps to ensure everyone is safe.
“Barring unforeseen circumstances — which, in a school district, those things may happen — these situations would be addressed as soon as possible,” he said in the interview. “I want to be clear that we try to address each incident as quickly and direct as we can. We don’t want to put any kid on the back burner.”
The superintendent declined to discuss the specific incident. But when asked about the texted apology the parent provided the Times Union, he said: “We do our best to get it right, to do it right by our kids. Am I going to say we are 100 percent? I wish we were, but I don’t know any place that is 100 percent.”
In a meeting with the parents in January, which was recorded by one of the parents and provided to the Times Union, Kolakowski characterized the way the report was handled as a “teachable moment.” He urged the parents to have trust that it wouldn’t happen again.
The superintendent, in his interview with the Times Union, pointed to the conflicting statements in the school incident report, which does not come to any conclusion about what happened.
“There’s two sides when you have an issue,” Kolakowski told the Times Union. “We have addressed the incident.”
But the girls’ mothers don’t think it has been addressed. They want assurances the boy will not be in the girls’ classes.
In the meeting with the parents, Kolakowski said the boy had been disciplined and instructed to not interact with the girls. But the district will not commit to keeping them out of classes together. Kolakowski pressed the parents to accept a safety plan that would have the boy in some of the girls’ classes, but always on opposite sides of the room.
The two parties should be separated so that the girls are not afraid to go to school, Omny Miranda Martone said.
“Title IX’s whole thing is, people in educational institutions should not be discriminated against because of their sex. That does seem to be what’s happening,” Martone said. “The victims have missed school because of this. It’s literally impacting their ability to access education.”
The parents said in the meeting that they want schedule changes before the girls come back to school, but Kolakowski said that will not happen.
“We’re not going to start anything. We need to get the girls in, period. We need them here. We can offer them additional support here,” he said in the meeting with the parents. “I don’t know that we can make it that they’re not in any of (the boy’s) classrooms.”
The girl told the Times Union that as much as she wants to go back to school, she’s not sure she can trust the administrators to correctly handle any potential future complaint. She would also like to switch schools, but her mother said she hasn’t been able to find affordable housing in nearby school districts.
When the girls still hadn’t come back to school at the start of this year, the district reported them to Child Protective Services, which began an investigation Jan. 31, according to a letter CPS sent to the parents. CPS has asked and received permission to see the girls’ medical records documenting the counseling they are receiving because of the alleged incident.
Kolakowski said in his meeting with the parents that he is confident the girls would be safe in school, and suggested that staying home would just make their anxiety about the situation worse.
In an interview with the Times Union, the high school principal also said the girls would be better off in school: “I can’t tell anyone how to feel, but we have a plethora of support here: counselors, psychologists, a mental health clinician, (and) hall monitors who have a law enforcement background,” Mitchell said.