Feds hold Allegheny Valley School District responsible for harassment, assault of disabled student

The Allegheny Valley School District failed to protect a disabled student whose classmates harassed and physically attacked him, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

The department’s Office for Civil Rights has announced that it had resolved a disability harassment investigation of the district.

The agreement includes requiring the district to train all of its staff, conduct a climate assessment and review all bullying incidents at the school for a three-year period.

The amounts of monetary reimbursements included in the agreement were redacted from the agreement, which was announced Wednesday.

The Office for Civil Rights “determined that the district subjected a student with a disability to harassment so pervasive that it constituted a hostile environment and that the district failed to take necessary steps to protect the student, end the harassment and assess whether the harassment impeded the student’s ability to access the district’s educational program.”

The student’s age, grade level and school were not disclosed. According to a district statement, the harassment happened during the 2021-22 school year.

The school board approved the agreement at its meeting Tuesday.

“Although the district disputes (the Office for Civil Rights)’s ultimate conclusions, it has accepted the resolution agreement insofar as its terms are consistent with the district’s objective and commitment to providing a safe and welcoming environment in its schools for all students,” the district’s statement said.

“The district readily concurs with the terms of the agreement providing for additional staff training concerning disability harassment and the conduct of a climate survey among students as means of promoting a positive school culture and improving its organizational practices,” the statement said. “The district intends to work collaboratively with OCR for these purposes.”

What the feds discovered

According to the department, classmates over six months directed slurs at the student, physically attacked him and threatened to attack him, all directly related to his disability. The nature of the disability was not disclosed.

In a letter to Superintendent Pat Graczyk, the office’s factual findings found that six students were involved in harassing the student, and that one of them punched the student in the head twice and on another day repeatedly threatened to punch him.

The student’s parent and school staff reported the incidents to a principal.

Despite one attack being recorded on a school security camera, the department said the principal did not treat it as disability-related harassment.

The investigation found that the district did not investigate all of the reported incidents and, where it did, the district’s investigations were so limited that they disregarded an eyewitness report and did not seek information from relevant witnesses. The district also treated each report of harassment as an isolated incident, instead of an accumulation of evidence that the student was experiencing persistent harassment related to his disability.

While the student’s parent asked for changes to his individualized education plan (IEP) to give the student more support, the district did not convene a formal meeting for more than six months after the parent first reported the harassment.

When a meeting was held, the department said there was no evidence the district considered if the harassment resulted in a denial of a free, appropriate public education for the student and if changes to the education plan were needed.

“No student should endure the disability-based hostile environment that the student in this investigation suffered, and our federal civil rights laws promise that schools will take necessary steps to protect students from these harms,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights. “Allegheny Valley School District has now committed to important corrective action so no student in its charge will live through the harm the student in this investigation suffered, and instead every student may expect to experience the nondiscriminatory learning environment that federal law guarantees.”

The agreement requires the district to take steps to ensure nondiscrimination based on disability in all of its education programs and activities.

It requires the district to provide training this school year and during the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years to all employees of the involved school, including administrators and district-level staff and administrators responsible for investigating disability harassment complaints.

It will have to review all incidents of bullying reported at the school by Dec. 15 to find if any were based on a disability. The climate assessment will be done during the second quarter of this school year.

The agreement also requires the district to offer individual remedies to the student such as counseling, academic or other therapeutic services to remedy the effects of the harassment and to convene the student’s IEP team to determine if his right to a free and appropriate public education were impacted by harassment.