Parents Allege Cover-Ups At The Classical Academy

By Tak Landrockt.landrock@krdo.com

COLORADO SPRINGS – Parents whose children attend the Classical Academy, an Academy District 20 charter school, say the administration has a history of hiding dangerous student behavior to make the school look safe.

NEWSCHANNEL 13 uncovered an alleged hit list on Friday, naming students and teachers a high school student threatened to kill. We also were able to confirm students at the high school who admitted smoking pot on school grounds and then in May a student threatened to blow up the charter school.

In all of these cases, parents were not told about the alleged threats, until we asked Mark Hyatt about what we found on Thursday. He sent an e-mail out concerning our investigation.

We also spoke with a parent who claims her daughter is the victim of a sexual assault at the elementary school back in 2005. She says the Principal did nothing to protect her daughter.

“It’s their fault it got to this point. It’s their fault my daughter was sexually assaulted. Their lack of action is why my daughter was hurt the way she was, ” says the mother whom we are not identifying to protect her daughter.

She tells NEWSCHANNEL 13 that after the alleged assault, the school never contacted her, it was another parent who’s daughter witnessed what happened. “She called me and asked if my daughter was okay. She had been crying in the bathroom and told me what happened.”

According to the mother, a fellow classmate reached under her daughter’s skirt and touched her and then made a derogatory sexual comment in front of her classmates.

When the mother finally contacted the school the next day, she says the Principal refused to speak with her. “She implied I was blowing it out of proportion.”

According to the mother, the principal later claimed she did her own investigation and found no evidence of a sexual assault. Under the law, schools are mandated to report any sexual assault to police immediately, but in this case it took more than six months before that happened.

According to a police report obtained by NEWSCHANNEL 13 it was a D-20 administrator who called police. While, the Classical Academy is in school D-20, it is separate from the school district’s administration

The mother, frustrated by the Classical Academy’s response to the situation went to the D-20 Superintendent asking for help. “I finally felt someone was listening. I felt like somebody was taking what happened seriously.”

The police report does talk about Principal Varland, who is still at the school, conducting her own investigation. She told the officer, “the allegations were exaggerated” and that it “was blown out of proportion.”

Varland says the little girl changed her story and admitted the allegation didn’t occur.

The girl’s mother says her daughter was afraid of Varland and after being pressured over and over again about the assault didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

The girl’s mother says the police report also shows Varland lied about conducting an investigation. She says when police contacted the suspect’s mother, she didn’t know what the officer was talking about and that she was never contacted by the school.

The police report goes on to say the suspect’s mother, “(was) hesitant to speak to me (police officer) and indicated she had no idea what incident I was referring to.”

Mark Hyatt the President of the Classical Academy defends the way the school handled the alleged assault. He says when he learned about it he took action.

“We engaged the family, all the experts in the community and it came down to doing the right thing, which was for the parents to move the child (victim) to another school.”

Hyatt wouldn’t answer why police weren’t called after the alleged assault only saying when he got involved he dealt with it right away.

The mother eventually pulled her daughter from the school out of frustration and says her daughter is now doing much better.

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UPDTATE: On Monday, Mark Hyatt clarified his statement sent home to parents on Thursday.

Here is his a copy of the letter sent out Monday. To see to original CLICK HERE.

TCA Family –

Last week, I sent a Titan Delivery to our community that read “Be assured that although the parents were satisfied with the outcome; police, lawyers, families, teachers and D-20 officials were involved in the process” (last paragraph, 3 sentence). It should have read “Be assured that although the parents were not satisfied with the outcome; police, lawyers, families, teachers and D-20 officials were involved in the process.” This was not intentional but rather a typing mistake.

Sincerely –

Mark Hyatt

President, TCA