The Burlington School District has agreed to special monitoring and staff training in order to resolve a sex discrimination investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Justice Department initiated its investigation following “a complaint by a group of parents alleging that their children had been subject to severe and pervasive sex-based harassment, including assault, that went unaddressed by the District,” according to a case summary published by the department’s civil rights division. As a result of the incidents, the children “feared for their safety and several withdrew from the school.”
News of the agreement, which was signed in mid-November, was first reported by the Burlington Register on Friday, the high school’s student paper. The Register has previously scooped the state’s professional press corps as recently as last year, when it reported Burlington High School’s guidance director was being investigated by the Agency of Education.
The settlement agreement between the district and the Justice Department, which lasts through the 2021-22 school year, is intended to help the district better address instances of peer-on-peer harassment.
It requires the district to work with the Mid-Atlantic Equity Center, an educational consulting firm, to review the district’s harassment policies and practices, and determine whether all of Burlington’s schools have adequate resources to carry out their responsibilities when responding to harassment complaints.
Per the agreement, the district must provide training to the students, staff and faculty at the Sustainability Academy at Lawrence Barnes, the magnet elementary school implicated in the complaint, and conduct anonymous annual climate surveys – for both parents and students – to gauge how prevalent harassment and bullying continue to be. The superintendent is also required to appoint a nondiscrimination officer, who will be charged with ensuring the entire district’s compliance with the agreement and federal civil rights law.
Annual reports will be due to the Justice Department detailing how all Burlington schools have responded to complaints of bullying, harassment, or discrimination, for the length of the settlement agreement.
In an interview Friday afternoon, Burlington Superintendent Yaw Obeng called the settlement a “great opportunity for the district to continue to move forward on our equity initiatives.”
“This agreement gives us a formal process in order to ensure that we get the resources that we need to implement the types of training that staff can utilize to support students and parents who are dealing with issues of bullying and harassment, particularly around equity issues,” he said.
Obeng declined to discuss the specifics of the investigation, including when it was initiated and how many students were involved, saying he was concerned about breaking confidentiality laws. But in an email to staff on Friday afternoon, he told district employees that the DOJ received a complaint three years ago “regarding a student and instances of bullying and harassment as related to gender fluidity at Sustainability Academy.”
Burlington School Board chair Clare Wool did not respond to requests for comment.