The board that governs Brattleboro Union High School, responding to a call from almost 200 residents, will launch an independent investigation of years-old allegations that a now-retired educator sexually exploited teenage students.
The claims just recently came to light.
“We need to pursue it. We need to get this information,” chair David Schoales said at a board meeting Tuesday night. “There’s a whole bunch of questions and a whole bunch of steps that need to be carefully considered and taken as we explore this history and make sure we’re not vulnerable to it happening again.”
The Windham Southeast School District Board was reacting to an Aug. 11 Commons newspaper essay by an alumnus who alleged misconduct by Robert “Zeke” Hecker, an English teacher who worked with students from Brattleboro, Dummerston, Guilford, Putney and Vernon from 1971 until 2004.
Local and state authorities investigated Hecker in 1985 and 2009, based on reports from two students who said they were 16 when the teacher drew them into sexual encounters illegal under Vermont statute, according to the essay by Mindy Haskins Rogers.
Although Vermont’s age of consent is 16, state law prohibits any older person “in a position of power, authority, or supervision” from having sexual contact with anybody under 18.
The Brattleboro Police Department has confirmed the probes. No charges were filed because the first complainant later recanted her claim of “an affair” and the second revealed hers two decades after the state’s then-statute of limitations ran out, according to authorities.
The state has since eliminated any deadline to report such civil claims.
Following publication of Haskins Rogers’ essay, more than 180 area residents wrote a letter to the school board, seeking “healing and accountability” through an “independent, impartial and transparent” investigation of all sexual misconduct claims “with a scope extending beyond the past 10 years.”
The signatories also seek an independently run way for students and staff to report concerns, as well as collaboration with community organizations to help those harmed.
On Tuesday, school leaders decided to form a subcommittee of board members and administrators to move forward, having already spoken with the Brattleboro Community Justice Center, Women’s Freedom Center and a clinical psychologist at the nearby University of Massachusetts.
“We need to hire an insurance attorney to see what we are covered for and what our liability could be,” Schoales said. “We’re talking about actions going all the way back to 1974 and possibly before. This could start quickly, but it’s going to take quite a while.”
Board member Liz Adams, who has identified herself as a “survivor,” followed up on Schoales’ comment on insurance to say officials “need to know that, but it’s not for the sake of, ‘Oh, what can we cover up?’”
“We’re going to be forthright with you,” Adams told an in-person and online audience.
“We can’t change the past,” board member Michelle Luetjen Green added, “but we can support people who were hurt.”
Hecker has released a public letter apologizing to students, parents, fellow educators, friends and family “who may have been affected by my behavior, which I regret.”
