Parents sue Sage International for ‘inadequate response’ to student’s sex assault claims

The parents of a former student at Sage International School of Boise filed a lawsuit Monday against the charter school, saying authorities failed to keep their daughter safe from her accused abuser, denying her civil right to an education.

The lawsuit filed in federal court outlines how their daughter, a minor at the time, claimed a male student sexually assaulted her while the pair was off campus. The lawsuit claims the boy later harassed her on campus. The Idaho Statesman does not identify alleged victims of sexual abuse; therefore it is not identifying the parents of the girl.

Under Title IX, once a school is made aware of a possible sexual assault involving one student against another student, the school must take steps to investigate and take action to “end any harassment, eliminate a hostile environment if one has been created, prevent harassment from occurring again, and to prevent retaliation,” the lawsuit claims.

The girl’s family alleges that the school violated Title IX regulations and their daughter was eventually forced to relocate to another school. Sage International has not yet filed a response to the complaint filed by the girl’s family, but through its board chairman denies all wrongdoing.

What she claims happened

According to the lawsuit, the girl began dating a male student in December 2017 and on Jan. 2, the two students were at the male student’s home. It claims the male attempted to touch her and remove her shirt, even though she repeatedly declined his advances.

The lawsuit alleges the boy “held (the girl) down and continued to grope her and insist that she remove her shirt.” It says she fought back against the “assaultive groping” and was able to escape his hold, only after he had partially removed her shirt, the lawsuit claims.

The girl was “embarrassed and ashamed,” the suit says and “she did not want to make a big deal of the assault and believed she could handle the matter herself. She broke up with (the boy) and otherwise quietly withdrew from interactions with him.”

But the lawsuit accuses him of glaring menacingly at her when she attempted to participate in classroom discussion during their shared classes, and he engaged in patterns of behavior that threatened her ability to participate fully in her educational opportunities.

As a result of his alleged “over-bearing on-campus conduct following the assault, (the girl) became more and more distracted from her academic pursuits and more socially withdrawn and depressed,” according to the lawsuit.

On March 8, the girl told a school counselor about the January assault and the counselor encouraged her to file a report about it, for the purposes of informing the administration. She filed the report on March 8 and told her mother about the assault March 9.

Sage administrators, according to the complaint, reviewed the girls text messages with the boy that confirmed he “made several physical sexual advances towards (the girl) despite her saying ‘NO’ numerous times.”

Claims against the school

The lawsuit alleges that Sage International told the girl that if she did not want to share classes with the boy, she would have to transfer. The family claims that because she was the victim of an off-campus sexual assault and on-campus harassment, she should not be the student required to disrupt her education. Sage International reportedly told the girl and the girl’s mother that because the assault occurred off-campus, Sage’s sexual harassment policies were not implicated.

“Sage International denies any wrongdoing as alleged in the complaint,” Sage International Board Chairman Bryan Moore wrote in an email to the Statesman. “As a matter of policy, to protect the rights of all parties, we do not comment on any pending litigation, especially where the litigation involves allegations of student misconduct.”

The lawsuit claims that the prosecutor brought charges against the boy, identified only by his initals for battery. The girl’s family’s attorney, Rebecca Rainey, said Thursday that she was unfamiliar with the criminal case and didn’t know if the boy was charged as a juvenile. Juvenile cases are sealed from the public.

The Idaho Statesman asked for confirmation about the charge from the Boise Police Department on Thursday morning, but has not yet received a response from its spokesman.

The lawsuit alleges that the school did not take appropriate precautions in enforcing a protection order that was in place between the two students that required them to stay 20 feet away from each other.

The boy’s locker was relocated away from the girl, but she was still in the same classes with him. While they sat on opposite sides of the classroom, the lawsuit alleges the school did not take measures to protect the girl when they were entering and exiting rooms and when they were in common areas.

The lawsuit claims that on March 20, the boy approached her locker, made eye contact with her and then followed close behind her while she went to class. The incident was reported to police but the lawsuit claims school administrators refused to allow police access to the boy and refused to turn over a video of the incident to the attorney that represents the girl.

The school told the girl’s mother that they would implement a “passing protocol” to minimize the two students’ contact in common areas.

On March 28, the court lifted the protection order because the alleged incident was no longer recent enough to have an order in place, according to the lawsuit. But, the court “specifically noted during the hearing that the facts did constitute a battery” by the boy. The criminal investigation continued.

On March 29, Sage International told the girl’s family that the boy would be allowed back into classes and relaxed any passing protocols that had been previously put in place.

Because of that decision, the girl’s parents withdrew her from Sage International and enrolled her at another local school. Because she transferred, she was unable to continue in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme that she had started at Sage, a program that would have offered her the opportunity to test out of college courses, advancing her university career.

The lawsuit alleges that the school’s “inadequate response” to the girl’s complaints resulted in her experiencing “first-hand the impacts of institutional revictimization as she — the victim of the assault — was forced to alter her educational career in order to protect her assailant’s educational opportunities.”

The lawsuit is pending, and a new court date has not yet been set.

This story was originally published September 27, 2018 at 1:18 PM.