BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — After charges of sexual assault temporarily shuttered the state’s deaf school, education officials said Wednesday they are investigating allegations of improprieties at the Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired.
State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek said changes will be made at the visually impaired school, similar to the revamped security enacted at the Louisiana School for the Deaf, which has been the focus of accusations of rape and sexual misconduct.
“We’ve had situations that I don’t think rise to the same level as the School for the Deaf, but we do have situations that cause us to look at the way we’ve been dealing with the school,” Pastorek said.
The superintendent told lawmakers on the House Education Committee that his department was “working on the problems” at the visually impaired school, a Baton Rouge-based public school with 94 students ranging from preschool-age to 21 years old. The school includes an on-campus residence for students from around the state.
Questioned after his testimony, Pastorek wouldn’t describe any of the allegations made about the School for the Visually Impaired, other than to say at least one involved “student on student contact.”
He said the school needs security and safety improvements like those made at the deaf school, which reopened last week. Pastorek temporarily closed the deaf school in October after charges that a 16-year-old student with a history of behavioral problems raped a 6-year-old student on a school bus.
It was the latest in a string of complaints about sexual misconduct at the Louisiana School for the Deaf, which has 193 students from elementary school through high school on its Baton Rouge campus, many of whom live in a campus dormitory during the week.
A lawsuit recently was filed against the state and the deaf school accusing two male students of repeatedly molesting a female student last year. In addition, at least five people — including three current or former teachers — were arrested between November and April, accused of indecent behavior with students at the school.
Pastorek said the lessons learned at the deaf school can be applied to the visually impaired school because both schools have special needs populations and on-campus living. But he said the complaints and reports about the visually impaired school don’t match the “rash of reports” involving the deaf school and don’t require a similar shutdown.
“It doesn’t rise to the level of ‘We have to stop all engines,'” he said.
While the deaf school was closed, the state added new security cameras, retrained security guards and installed an electronic-monitoring system to track dormitory staff, said Elizabeth Moore, interim director for special schools at the Department of Education. Monitoring on the school buses that take students home on weekends also was increased.
Rep. Patricia Smith, D-Baton Rouge, whose district includes the deaf school, said the closure of the school set the state up for an eventual lawsuit because the state didn’t provide enough education opportunities to students when the school was closed for a month.
“We sent them home to some homes that didn’t even have the proficiency to sign,” Smith said.
Pastorek said the students will get the educational services planned for them before the school year ends. “I stick by the decision. I think it was the right decision,” he said.
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