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LONGMONT, Colo. (KDVR) — A Longmont father said the St. Vrain Valley School District isn’t doing enough to protect his 12-year-old daughter. He wants a seventh-grade boy moved from Sunset Middle School to another school and so far the district is refusing, even though emails obtained by the Problem Solvers confirm the boy had unwanted sexual contact with the girl.

“I do not feel like the school handled this correctly,” said the father, who FOX31 is not identifying in order to protect the identity of his seventh-grade daughter.

The father said what happened to his daughter over several days in early February has left her traumatized. In a statement that school officials asked the girl to write to initiate an investigation, the 12-year-old girl referenced a day at recess where the boy “grabbed my hand and put my hand in between his legs so that I couldn’t move my hand away. I tried to make him stop but he kept telling me to shush and I was being really loud.”

The girl wrote that on another day, “he touched my chest and I tried to tell him to stop. I grabbed his hand and pushed it away. He said he was going to commit suicide because of me. I decided not to tell anyone anything because if I did and he commits suicide then I would have to live with the blame for the rest of my life.”

“Right away I thought it was a predatory move to make the victim feel guilty and to use whatever method to keep her quiet,” said the girl’s father.

The 12-year-old girl wrote on yet another day that the boy “asked if I knew what 69 meant. I said ‘no’ even though I did know. He said, ‘I can go show you in the bathroom.’ That’s when I was really uncomfortable.”

“I don’t feel my daughter is safe at the school where she was assaulted by this boy with the boy there,” the victim’s father said.

FOX31 is not sharing everything the girl wrote about but eventually, she told a trusted teacher about the incidents and Sunset Middle School did investigate, telling the father in an email reviewed by the Problem Solvers that the investigation resulted in the following actions:

  • Corrective disciplinary action for the male student
  • We will put in a no-contact contract between the two students 
  • The boy will be placed on a Discipline Plan and Safety Plan 
  • The boy will have a schedule change and will not be permitted to be in classes or at lunch or recess with your daughter. 
  • We will also institute a Safety Plan for your daughter so that she knows where to go when she needs support. 

“The school is not doing anywhere near enough to protect this child,” said Igor Raykin, a civil rights attorney who has litigated sexual assault and inappropriate touching between students.

“Actually, I’ve defended kids who are accused of much less than what this kid is accused of and they went through the expulsion process,” Raykin said.

The girl’s father isn’t asking for expulsion but he does want the boy moved to another school, especially after what his daughter experienced earlier this week.

“My daughter was in the hallway and the boy came past her and was looking at her really mad. She got frightened and started crying. The principal came by and asked her why she was crying. She told him and a couple of other teachers what happened. This is why he needs to be transferred!” the girl’s father said.

“She’s being retraumatized every day that she sees the person who did this to her,” explained Raykin, who said under Colorado law Sunset Middle School’s priority should be to make the victim feel safe even if that means moving the boy to a different school.

“That’s what’s really troubling here is. I think the school is absolutely favoring the rights of the perpetrator here over the rights of the victim,” Raykin said before adding, “They simply cannot be in the same building.”

In a statement, a spokeswoman from the SVVSD told FOX31:

Due to federal law (FERPA), the district is prohibited from sharing any information related to student discipline and/or student records. The safety and well-being of our students is our highest priority, and it is always our policy that whenever the district receives allegations of sexual misconduct to immediately involve local law enforcement.

The father said the school resource officer was brought in to investigate but the dad said he felt the officer discouraged him from pressing charges and told him prosecutors probably would not file sex assault charges against a minor, maybe a false imprisonment count at most.

The father told FOX31 he has decided to seek a false imprisonment charge though no word if the Boulder County district attorney will accept such a charge.

The father has also asked for a Title IX investigation to determine if his daughter’s rights were violated, although Title IX investigations are performed by the school district which has already told the father it’s done enough to address the situation.