The U.S. Department of Education\u2019s Office for Civil Rights last week launched investigations into 20 school districts nationwide for staff sexual misconduct allegations.\u00a0San Antonio\u2019s North East Independent School District is the only Texas public school district among the 20.<\/p>\n
The data suggested the districts may be improperly addressing staff sexual misconduct toward students, Department of Education officials wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n
U.S. Department of Education officials did not immediately respond\u00a0to questions about why North East\u00a0ISD was included in the\u00a0investigation.\u00a0District spokesperson Aubrey Chancellor said\u00a0NEISD officials are not sure why the district was selected for the national probe.<\/p>\n
North East ISD was recently notified of the review, Chancellor said, adding that the district will provide information requested by the federal agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cNEISD takes any allegations regarding staff sexual misconduct very seriously,\u201d she said. \u201cAll allegations are thoroughly investigated and we take all appropriate and required actions to protect students.\u201d<\/p>\n
North East ISD data from the 2023-24 school year was not publicly available on the Office for Civil Rights’ website as of Wednesday afternoon. Data from the 2020-21 school year\u00a0\u2014 the most recent available\u00a0\u2014 showed the district reported zero instances of students being harassed or bullied on the basis of sex.<\/p>\n
The newly announced federal investigations will determine whether the districts have the proper procedures in place to accurately report sexual harassment and assault allegations and ensure accurate data collection.\u00a0Federal officials will also examine whether local district policies comply with federal law.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Along with the announcement of the 20 investigations, the Department of Education issued guidance reminding\u00a0districts on Friday to respond promptly to sexual harassment allegations from educators or students and to prevent \u201ccredibly accused\u201d employees from finding employment in other districts or internally in different roles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Districts must accurately collect and report data to the civil rights office and conduct their own investigations into sexual misconduct allegations\u00a0\u2014 on top of those carried out by law enforcement, education department officials said in the announcement.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cDistricts that inaccurately report\u2014or report zero incidents of rape or sexual assault despite evidence suggesting otherwise\u2014may face OCR enforcement,\u201d the Department of Education said in the statement, threatening to remove funding from school systems that fail to comply with federal law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. Department of Education\u2019s Office for Civil Rights last week launched investigations into 20 school districts nationwide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-374748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}