Shocking claims of abuse and attempted sexual assault during a Mount Airy Middle School overnight trip have led to an area family filing a Title IX lawsuit in U.S. District Court last week.
The lawsuit claims that the school district turned a blind eye to a pattern of harassment and bullying of a sixth grade male that took place during the 2021-2022 school year.
The most serious of the charges stem from events that took place on a field trip taken by members of the HOSA Club of Mount Airy Middle School in March 2022. The group, formerly known as Health Occupation Students of America, introduces students to future opportunities in health occupations — and is known now as HOSA-Future Health Professionals.
According to lawyers for the family, the field trip and competition should have been a dream come true for the young man. “Instead it was a nightmare as his fellow students not only bullied and harassed him, but beat with a belt, drug him across the floor, threw him into a shower with the water on and attempted to penetrate his rectum with an electric toothbrush.”
“Not only did these students repeatedly brutalize a 12-year-old boy, but one of the chaperones actually saw it happening and did nothing to stop it,” said Chance Lynch, one of the lawyers for the family.
“They failed this young man in the worst way imaginable and they need to be held accountable. Until they are, none of our children are safe.”
“We are horrified when grown men face this kind of violence in prison. Our client was a 12-year-old boy,” said Mario Pacella, co-counsel for the family on the case.
“It’s been more than a year and he still has nightmares. He can’t go to school. He can’t go out and play in his own community. His entire childhood has been robbed from him because officials at the school and district couldn’t be bothered to do their jobs and keep him safe,” Pacella said.
The complaint alleges that over the course of three days, the victim had several altercations with other members of the school group in a hotel room the boys shared at the Four Seasons Convention Center in Greensboro.
His mother already had concerns before the trip began when she was told that three boys would be sharing a room with two beds, something with which she was not comfortable. The family made accommodation by supplying a sleeping bag to allow him to sleep atop the bedding.
Unbeknownst to the mother, there would be no adult chaperone staying in the boys’ room and there would, according to the complaint, eventually be more boys staying in the room than were authorized to do so.
The mother said she was informed by a 1 a.m. text message on the first night of the trip that the “other boys in his room got in trouble for throwing food and running around,” but her son did not express a desire to leave.
However, he said a field trip chaperone had come to the room at least three times “due to excessive noise” but the boys remained unsupervised afterward.
Middle school boys running amok in a hotel room perhaps should not be wholly unexpected; attempted physical or sexual assault however would be and is in clear violation of Mount Airy City Schools stated code of conduct.
Attorneys for the family included in the complaint full text of several Mount Airy City Schools policies on bullying and harassing behavior including, “Bullying and harassing behavior creates an atmosphere of intimidation and fear, detracts from the save environment necessary for student learning… The board prohibits all forms of bullying and harassing behavior, including the encouragement of such behavior.”
The lawsuit suggests a pattern of behavior by Mount Airy City Schools that began at least as early as November 2021, with another incident in February 2022 confirmed by and reported to the mom by school administration, and then peaked in March on the field trip.
On more than one occasion, the mother expressed concerns about her son’s safety on the trip and was given assurances by an assistant principal and the teacher overseeing the trip that the child would be safe because he “was a bright and well-behaved student who was adored by the older students.”
Such was not the case as from the first night the young man was hit with a belt, dragged across the floor, and placed against his will into the shower with the water running, the suit alleges. The complaint states these activities occurred three nights consecutively. On night two while the victim was watching television the other boys, “pushed his legs up and inserted or attempted to insert an electric toothbrush in his rectum”
The suit continues, “One of the chaperones who entered the room saw the Plaintiff being dragged towards the bathroom and did not intervene.”
One the accused perpetrators of the abuse against the victim was the sibling of a high school aged female student on the field trip. The complaint said that boy was to have stayed in the room with his sister on the trip — but did not. The complaint later states he was the main antagonist of the alleged abuse.
“The chaperone knew or should have known that this particular boy that they observed physically abusing the (victim) was not assigned to that room and should not have been allowed in that room. Still, the chaperone did nothing,” the complaint states.
This complaint was filed against Mount Airy City Schools and no other individual or entity was named as a co-defendant.
The Public Information Office of the Greensboro Police Department aided in finding the complaint regarding the incident at the hotel; a request for that file is still pending at time of press.
A complaint was filed with the Greensboro Police Department over the alleged actions. A request for that file by The Mount Airy News was still pending at time of press.
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