Loudoun County School Board members voted to fire embattled superintendent Scott Ziegler after a special grand jury report said he lied about a rape committed by a transgender student.
The board voted unanimously on Dec. 6 to fire Ziegler without cause, the Virginia school district’s spokesman, Wayde Byard, told The Epoch Times.
The move came after a special grand jury in Loudoun County released a 91-page report on Dec. 5 condemning Ziegler and other school officials for displaying a “stunning lack of openness” about the incidents.
The grand jury, made up of randomly selected Loudoun County residents, said Ziegler lied when he said there were no records of assault occurring in school bathrooms.
ABC7News reported on Dec. 7 that Ziegler will receive 12 months of severance pay per his contract. Byard did not confirm to The Epoch Times whether a severance package had been promised.
The Virginia school district made national headlines last year after a father accused the district at a board meeting of covering up his 15-year-old daughter’s rape by a skirt-wearing biological boy.
While he was speaking, the man was tackled by police, knocked to the ground, dragged out, and charged with disorderly conduct.
The 15-year-old victim’s family and officials said a “gender-fluid” boy sexually assaulted her on May 28, 2021 at Stone Bridge High School in the girls’ restroom.
Five months later, the same transgender student was accused of assaulting a second female student on Oct. 6, 2021, at Broad Run High School, after the district transferred him there.
In that incident, the transgender student was accused of forcing a female student into an empty classroom, holding her against her will, and touching her inappropriately.
In October of 2021, a Virginia judge found the transgender student guilty of sexual assault charges involving the 15-year-old.
The following month, the transgender student pleaded no contest to sexual battery in the second incident. He was sentenced to probation at a residential treatment facility until his 18th birthday in June 2024.
As part of the sentence, he was ordered to register as a sex offender, but a judge reversed that decision.
In their report, the special grand jury said Ziegler denied the first sexual assault during a school board meeting in June 2021.
At the meeting, according to the report, a board member asked Ziegler, “Do we have assaults in our bathrooms or in our locker rooms, regularly? I would hope not but I'd like clarification.”
The superintendent responded that there were no records of assault occurring in the school bathrooms, the report said.
Another witness testified the superintendent’s statement was a “bald-faced lie.” In response to that testimony, the grand jury wrote in the report, “We agree.”
The report also noted that Stone Bridge High School principal Tim Flynn failed to mention the first sexual assault in an email to the school community on the day it happened. Ziegler signed off on the email, the report indicated.
Ziegler said at the time he misunderstood the question from the board member.
He said that he had interpreted the question to be about whether the school had records of assaults happening in restrooms involving transgender and gender-fluid students, according to the report.
The report said there were several “decision points” for senior school administrators—up to and including the superintendent—to be “transparent” and step in and alter the sequence of events leading up to the second sexual assault on Oct. 6.
“They failed at every juncture,” the report said.
While the district is to blame for most of the missteps leading up to the Oct. 6 assault, the report concluded that there was “not a coordinated cover-up between LCPS administrators and members.”
The special grand jury said there was a breakdown of communication between multiple parties, including the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, the Court Services Unit, and the Office of the Loudoun Commonwealth’s Attorney, which led to the events.
Except for the May 28, 2021, email from the superintendent, neither the Loudoun County School Board, nor its individual members, were given information regarding these incidents until after the second sexual assault, the report said.
The board did not receive information from the superintendent’s office, but instead from public reporting that the assailant was the same as in the first incident, the report stated.
The Loudoun County School Board appeared to ignore the damning nature of the report.
The board said allegations that the school had covered up the sexual assaults on school grounds for political gain were unfounded. But the board promised to look into the special grand jury’s serious criticisms.
The next day, Ziegler was fired in a special meeting.
