The email to AP confided: “Up until reading your article I believed that my daughter's assault was an anomaly. It's not something that is talked about. School officials must take immediate and proactive steps to protect students from being assaulted on school grounds. The first step is to bring it out in the open.”
The anguished mother was responding to the first installment of an Associated Press series running through May exploring the untold story of student-on-student sexual assaults, not on college campuses but in U.S. elementary and secondary schools. The result of a yearlong investigation, the expose by Emily Schmall, Reese Dunklin, Robin McDowell and Justin Pritchard earns the Beat of the Week.
The AP team found about 17,000 official reports of sex assaults by students over a four-year period – an undercount because 18 states don’t track such assaults.
The reporting team, led by editor Maud Beelman in Dallas, ultimately found about 17,000 official reports of sex assaults by students over a four-year period and examined how well – or, in some cases, how poorly – schools address the nationwide problem. Reporters surveyed state education departments and consulted federal crime data for that tally, which is nonetheless an undercount because 18 states don’t track on-campus sex assaults and those that do vary widely in how they classify and catalog such incidents. K-12 schools, unlike colleges, face no federal reporting requirements.
The series began with the story of one middle schooler in Maine, who was bullied for a year and then, he said, raped three times by his seventh-grade classmates. The boy and his family spoke to AP publicly because they said they wanted to spare others from going through what they had endured. On-the-ground interviewing in Brunswick, Maine, by Minneapolis correspondent McDowell was supplemented by reporting from Fort Worth correspondent Schmall, and reporters Dunklin and Pritchard, based in Dallas and Los Angeles, respectively.
One startling finding of the AP investigation was that some victims were as young as 5 and 6 years old. That was the subject of a separate story. Other elements of the first installment included: a report on AP’s methodology, a 50-state look at the problem, and a `What to Do’ sidebar for readers who learn about or suspect an assault. Mike Sirolly in Philadelphia and Michelle R. Smith in Providence contributed to the latter two pieces.
So far more than 100 readers have used a special email address, telling their own stories of abuse and concluding like the mother above: “I thank you for this article.”
Pritchard had the idea to publish a special email address for feedback, which is being appended to all stories in the series. More than 100 readers have used it so far, many telling their own stories of abuse and concluding like the mother above: “I thank you for this article.”
For their deeply reported and sensitively written kickoff to an important national investigation, Schmall, Dunklin, McDowell and Pritchard win this week’s $500 Beat of the Week award.
Chaz Wing records the weather forecast at a radio station in Brunswick, Me., March 18, 2017. Wing has testified that he was raped by classmates three times in junior high, even after repeatedly complaining of harassment to teachers and administrators. Across the U.S., thousands of students have been sexually assaulted by other students in high schools, junior highs and even elementary schools.
AP PHOTO / ROBERT F. BUKATY
LaToya Johnson looks at her daughter at their home, April 28, 2017, in San Diego. Johnson says her daughter was fondled in an elementary school bathroom by other students. Photo from an installment of the AP series revealing thousands of cases of student-on-student sex assault in grades K-12.
AP PHOTO / GREGORY BULL
Amanda Jackson holds a basketball that belonged to her son as she poses, April 28, 2017, at a basketball court where he used to play while growing up in Olympia, Wash. Jackson's son waited two years to tell her that as a freshman at Capital High School he had been assaulted at a basketball camp in 2010 by several teammates. Photo from an installment of the AP series investigating school sex assault.
AP PHOTO / TED S. WARREN
High school basketball coach Charles Freet speaks with an unidentified man during warm ups before a junior varsity basketball game in Argyle, Texas, Feb. 10, 2017. Freet lost a previous job as boys basketball coach at Flower Mound High School after a teacher reported that players were sodomizing teammates. Freet told administrators investigating the allegations that the acts were merely a joke and not hazing. Photo from an installment of the AP series investigating school sex assault.
AP PHOTO / LM OTERO
Estill Middle School, in Estill, S.C., Shown Jan. 31, 2017, is the site of one of the nation's largest single sexual assault cases reported on school grounds. At least four students, ages 11 to 14, were victimized by as many as 30 fellow students in 2013. Photo from an installment of the AP series investigating school sex assault.
AP PHOTO / DAVID GOLDMAN