Hundreds of students in one of Virginia’s most populous counties walked out of school on Tuesday to protest against the handling of sexual assaults that took place in two different schools in the county.
Video footage and photographs showed students outside multiple schools, including Stone Bridge High School and Broad Run High School—the facilities where confirmed and alleged assaults took place.
“Why didn’t anybody tell us?” one said.
A flyer circulated before the walkouts encouraged people to leave the buildings for 10 minutes “to show solidarity to victims of sexual violence and demand safety in our schools.”
Loudoun County Public Schools told media outlets that officials allowed the demonstrations. A spokesman claimed the protest was “not a student-generated one” but was organized by parents.
Some in the district have called on Superintendent Scott Ziegler to resign.
Ziegler, reading a prepared statement to reporters in mid-October, said he was wrong when he alleged during a June school board meeting that no assaults had taken place in bathrooms at schools in the district.
Scott Smith, the father of the girl raped in May, has said the male who carried out the crime took advantage of the permissive environment to enter the girls bathroom.
The boy was wearing a skirt, a judge heard on Monday.
