CV NEWS FEED // At the criminal trial of disgraced Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) ex-Superintendent Scott Ziegler, a teacher testified that the district looked the other way and eventually fired her when she spoke out about repeated sexual assault involving a 10-year-old autistic boy.
Ziegler is being tried on three misdemeanor charges. During his controversial tenure at the helm of LCPS, his Northern Virginia district infamously attempted to cover up the 2021 rape of a 15-year-old female student in the girl’s bathroom of a school. The male assailant was wearing a skirt at the time of the assault, and the rape occurred after the district supported pro-“trans” policies.
Daily Wire investigative journalist Luke Rosiak received several awards for breaking the rape cover-up story. On Thursday, he brought to light another egregious string of incidents that reportedly happened under Ziegler’s watch.
Rosiak wrote that during the Ziegler’s trial, former LCPS special education teacher Erin Brooks “testified that a 10-year-old autistic student would grab her genitals dozens of times a day while making sexual motions with his tongue.”
Furthermore, the journalist reported that when Brooks notified school administrators, they “gave her a piece of cardboard to hold in front of her groin” and suggested that they buy her an apron to “slow down the penetration.”
Brooks’ teaching aide, Laurie Vandermeulen, also testified that she was sexually assaulted.
At Ziegler’s trial, Brooks and Vandermeulen suggested that the true party at fault for the sexual abuse was not the minor special needs student but the school administration. In essence, the boy was yet another victim whose suspected ongoing abuse was ignored and covered up by the LCPS.
According to Rosiak, both Ziegler’s attorney and the principal of the elementary school where Brooks and Vandermeulen worked appeared to blame the two women for their own sexual assault. “They argued in court, the student didn’t do the same to his new teacher, and the teachers failed to implement their suggestions such as the apron.”
Again, from Rosiak:
Brooks said she was a dedicated special education teacher who withstood hitting, spitting, and biting without complaint, but that this was something much worse, and she was concerned for the student as well as herself, but that the school district’s response was “feeble.”
“In my expert opinion, these behaviors were a sign that something is going on,” said Brooks at the trial. She said that she asked her principal to call Child Protective Services (CPS) for the boy, but the principal refused.
Brooks was fired by the school district sometime after she made her allegations:
Evidence at trial showed that Brooks was Special Education Teacher of the Year in 2021, and got glowing reviews in early 2022 — only to have Ziegler recommend that the school board fire her, the only teacher he did that to.
Rosiak added that, according to Ziegler’s lawyer, her client “asked the board to fire Brooks because LCPS thought it might get sued by the parents of the assailant.”
This was despite all evidence indicating that the boy’s parents “were barely responsive and that the student might even be suffering abuse at home.”
The Daily Wire journalist added that Ziegler’s current trial
could be the best chance at criminal culpability for Loudoun officials after its spokesman was acquitted of felony perjury charges. Outrage over the school system’s coverup of a rape by a skirt-wearing boy, coupled with the fact that the county’s prosecutor is a leftist activist who tried to jail the rape victim’s father, led [Youngkin] to empower a special grand jury to investigate the school system.
When Rosiak first broke the LCPS rape cover-up story two years ago, it quickly sent shockwaves throughout the nation, becoming a catalyst for the burgeoning movement for increased parental rights in education.
In addition, the news helped set the stage for Republican now-Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s narrow upset win in the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election.
