CMS again moves administrators from school after sexual assault investigation
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Title IX complaints in CMS
From lawsuits at Myers Park High to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools reassigning administrators amid controversy, this is the latest on sexual assault cases and Title IX issues in the district.
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For the second time this school year, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has reassigned administrators to alternative jobs in the district after they were under fire for how a sexual assault case was handled.
On Monday night, CMS confirmed it has given two principals — one assistant, one head principal — new jobs in district administration, moving them away from Hawthorne Academy of Health Sciences, where they’d been under investigation, starting in November.
Then-principal at Hawthorne Diann Weston and then-assistant principal Nina Adams were suspended with pay amid controversy that followed a reported sexual assault on campus, the Observer has previously reported. Adams was also Hawthorne’s Title IX liaison.
The case involved a 17-year-old male student accused of following a 15-year-old female student into a bathroom and groping her.
When the girl reported it to school officials, an internal investigation was opened but administrators told the girl and her mother that they found she was lying. And the Hawthorne student was told she’d be suspended one day and have to take a class called “Sexual Harassment Is Preventable.” The student never served the suspension and it remains unclear whether the male student faced punishment at school, though a Charlotte Observer investigation later found he was criminally charged.
A Charlotte Observer investigation in November found the school’s response violated best practices for K-12 schools on how to handle Title IX investigations. Federal law (Title IX) and related regulations require schools respond fairly and quickly to issues like harassment, discrimination and sexual violence. The 17-year-old male student had been accused of sexual misconduct at school at least once before last fall, the Observer found in police records. And he was charged, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, with two counts of sexual battery.
After public outcry, CMS suspended Weston and Adams at Hawthorne and re-opened the case. It’s not clear what the new outcome of the Title IX case investigation has found, or what the investigation concluded about Weston and Adams’ actions.
Weston, who had been the principal at Hawthorne Academy since 2014, was moved to a curriculum coordinator position in one of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ learning communities, said Patrick Smith, the assistant superintendent of communications. Adams will work as a data specialist in the Office of Accountability.
Both of the positions were existing vacancies, Smith said. There is no impact on salary for either.
In a message to Hawthorne Academy families Monday, CMS announced the new assignments were effective Tuesday.
“We are recruiting for the principal and assistant principal roles,” the message said. “Current interim principal Mike Turner will remain in the interim role until a new principal is appointed.”
Not long before Weston and Adams were suspended, CMS moved Myers Park former principal Mark Bosco from the high school to a senior administrator position in the district office. He was at the helm of Myers Park for about eight years before being suspended in August following a nearly-three month investigation and suspension prompted by complaints from students that he and other leaders mishandled past reports of sexual assault and harassment on campus.
Sexual assault complaints at school
As the Observer reported last year, the Title IX complaint at Hawthorne came as similar cases led to controversy in the district. One Title IX expert, Lauren McCoy, an assistant professor at Winthrop University, said the school and the district should never have attempted to suspend the girl — even if there was no evidence of an assault to warrant punishing the accused male student.
“Schools are required to investigate the claim to determine if a violation has occurred and then issue appropriate sanctions. It should be a completely neutral process,” McCoy said in November. “The lack of evidence should only impact the punishment of an alleged assailant. They should not pass judgment on a reporting individual.”
The girl’s mother — who the Observer is not identifying in order to protect the identity of the student — says she was angry her daughter was accused of lying after coming forward about being sexually assaulted.
According to documents the Observer obtained from the girl’s mother after the school’s initial Title IX investigation, officials concluded there was no evidence of a violation of the sexual harassment policy (which also covers sexual assault) and attempted to suspend the 15-year-old female for a day for “falsification of information.”
The school has an enrollment of about 300 students.
This story was originally published February 8, 2022 at 10:53 AM.
