A perspective from Rebecca Fox
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools pays lip service to restorative justice, trauma-informed practice, and community accountability. When our 5-year-old was sexually assaulted at Frank Porter Graham Bilingüe, we learned del dicho al hecho hay mucho trecho: it’s all talk and no action.
While our family experienced this nightmare, the school leaders responsible turned their backs on us. This was especially painful because they were my colleagues, people with whom I thought I had collegial relationships and shared values.
I was the Speech Language Pathologist at FPG Bilingüe for over four years. I loved my job and planned to be there for many more years. The feeling seemed mutual. My FPG Bilingüe colleagues honored me as the 2018-19 Support Staff Employee of the Year, a distinction I still hold dear.
My care for the FPG Bilingüe community, and my fear for students’ safety, were powerful influences in my family’s decision to file a lawsuit against Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education and some of its leaders.
Our then-five-year-old daughter was violently and repeatedly sexually assaulted at FPG Bilingüe by her kindergarten classmate. When my husband and I learned about these horrifying assaults, we duly reported them and expected our school community to respond with care. We thought then-Principal Emily Bivins and then-Assistant Principal Karen Galassi-Ferrer would take steps to ensure our daughter could attend school safely and that no child was ever sexually assaulted at FPG Bilingüe again.
Instead, Dr. Bivins responded with callousness, minimizing our daughter’s assaults as “tickling,” asking her if she liked it. She and her boss, Dr. Misti Williams, pushed for our daughter—not the boy who assaulted her—to move to another classroom. Ms. Galassi-Ferrer never acknowledged our reports in any way.
We were forced to keep our daughter home from school for nearly a month while we awaited an adequate safety plan from the school. After asking for an update, we were finally told our daughter could stay in her classroom and that supervision in one location would improve.
We allowed our daughter to return to kindergarten. She went back excited but came home scared. She saw the boy who attacked her all day long: at morning meeting, lunch, and recess. After we reported him threatening her, Dr. Bivins complained about our family’s “demands” and said it was “not possible” for our daughter not to share settings with her assailant. Then Dr. Bivins requested both our daughters be removed from FPG Bilingüe. “This just won’t end. Go to Carrboro already.”
Rather than addressing the problem of safety and sexual violence at FPG Bilingüe, the CHCCS Board, Dr. Bivins, Dr. Williams, and their colleagues wanted to get rid of our family.
I was heartbroken to leave my job and community, but we felt we had no choice. The district made clear it would not take the necessary steps to keep our children safe, so we withdrew from the district, and I resigned.
In the process of litigation, I have been horrified to learn of at least seven student-on-student sexual assaults occurring at FPG Bilingüe before and after our daughter’s. These children and their families received a similar dismissive response from leaders. Another FPG family has filed a lawsuit against the CHCCS Board, Dr. Bivins, Ms. Galassi-Ferrer, and Dr. Wiliams for mishandling their child’s sexual assault at school.
I worked in public schools as a classroom teacher and Speech Language Pathologist for years. School and district leaders place huge emphasis on “accountability” when they mean test scores. At every turn, the Board and its agents have refused genuine accountability for the sexually violent atmosphere they permitted at FPG Bilingüe. They have blamed our daughter and other children for the sexual abuse they suffered while under their care.
Our daughter’s sexual assault at school was not an isolated incident but part of a pattern of leaders ignoring sexual abuse at FPG Bilingüe and allowing it to spread, then sweeping hurting families under the rug – or out of school – rather than helping them. Being a “good” school district doesn’t prevent sexual violence in schools. Responsible leadership, clear communication, and strong protocols and policies to protect children from sexual violence does.
This experience has been profoundly traumatic for our family, and we don’t want to deepen that trauma. The lawsuit has been hard, and speaking out publicly is terrifying. But I’ve told my daughters and students they must speak up when something is wrong.
The sexual abuse our daughter and other children experienced at FPG Bilingüe was wrong. FPG and CHCCS leaders’ indifference to multiple instances of sexual abuse was wrong. Our family deserves accountability and justice. All children at FPG Bilingüe and throughout CHCCS deserve to be safe from sexual violence at school, and families deserve responsible leaders who care about their children with actions and not just words.
Rebecca Fox lives in Chapel Hill with her family. A former Durham Public Schools dual language teacher, she earned a Master of Elementary Curriculum and Instruction, with endorsements in Bilingual Education and ESL, at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a Master in Speech-Language Pathology at UNC Chapel Hill. Her attorney is Shayla Richberg.
Note: Andy Jenks, Chief Communications Officer of CHCCS, responded to this article below:
We dispute Ms. Fox’s version of events and find her article replete with inaccuracies. However, in compliance with confidentiality laws and out of respect for the privacy of all children involved, we cannot respond to each point individually. A motion to dismiss this lawsuit is pending in federal court, and our school has denied wrongdoing.
CHCCS acknowledges that the school and law enforcement independently investigated these allegations, which did not result in further action. While it is not appropriate to issue further public comment at this time, we look forward to sharing additional facts as requested by the court.