OH: Judge - School district not liable in girl's rape

Friday, December 12, 2008 5:52 AM
By Jodi Andes
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/12/12/liability.ART_ART_12-12-08_B1_EBC7B0B.html?sid=101

The Columbus school board and a guidance counselor in the district can't be held accountable for an eighth-grader getting raped at home, a federal judge has ruled.

But an assistant principal and computer teacher at Woodward Park Middle School will have to stand trial on claims that their inaction contributed to the abuse of the girl, Judge Algenon L. Marbley ruled yesterday.

Marbley's ruling was in response to a civil lawsuit that the girl's mother filed last year in U.S. District Court in Columbus against the district and Woodward Park's assistant principal, counselor and computer teacher. The Dispatch does not name victims of sexual assault.

According to the lawsuit, the girl, who had been in trouble several times, was sent to Assistant Principal Ofir Sisco on Jan. 18, 2005, for disciplinary problems. While in her office, the girl began crying.

Sisco called in Michelle Hooper, the school's guidance counselor.

The girl did not tell school officials that she was being sexually abused at home, but asked questions about what would happen if something similar were occurring. Sisco said in a report later that day that the girl "made comments that strongly suggested some sort of sexual abuse was going on at home."

The lawsuit also says that the girl said she had told Kerry Myers, her computer teacher, about the abuse before hinting at it in Sisco's office. Myers denies that conversation ever took place.

Sisco, though, never called Franklin County Children Services, as the law and Columbus district policy requires when abuse is suspected, Marbley noted. Instead, the assistant principal tried to reach the girl's mother by phone. Sisco left messages for the mother, but the two never spoke until February when the family was in the school.

A week after the girl was in Sisco's office, the assistant principal suspended her for 10 days for shoving another student and being verbally abusive to a substitute teacher.

It was during that suspension, while the girl was at home, that she was raped by her stepfather, the lawsuit says. He already had been touching her inappropriately.

After the suspension, the family came into the school. Sisco shared her concerns about possible sexual abuse. That night, the girl's stepfather admitted to his wife that he'd been abusing her daughter.

He eventually was sentenced to five years in prison.

Marbley dismissed the district from the lawsuit, saying the school had provided adequate training concerning how to handle possible abuse. However, it is up to a jury to decide if Sisco was reckless in how she handled the girl.

The judge said he dismissed Hooper as a defendant because she didn't meet with the girl as long as Sisco did, and there is no evidence that Hooper suspected abuse.

Because there is debate about what Myers knew, Marbley kept her as a defendant in the lawsuit.

The ruling was filed late yesterday afternoon and the parties, except for the girl's attorney, could not be reached for comment.

The girl is now 18 and happy that the case will go forward, her attorney Aaron Glasgow said.

"This is what we've been waiting for, for a while -- to know she can have her day in court."

jandes@dispatch.com