An investigation at St. Paul’s School, a private boarding school in Concord, N.H., has found that 13 former faculty and staff members engaged in “substantiated” sexual misconduct and that school leaders failed to protect students.
The Boston Globe reports that the results of the independent investigation by a Boston law firm were released Monday by the school along with an written apology from school leaders.
“We offer our most sincere apology to survivors for the wrongs that were done to them at St. Paul’s School,” Rector Michael G. Hirschfeld and Board of Trustees President Archibald Cox Jr., said in a letter to the school community. “The failures uncovered in this report have hurt every member of our School community, none more so than the survivors of these abuses.”
The two leaders credited survivors of the sexual misconduct for their persistence and insistence that the school recognize its failures.
The report says that 13 former faculty and staff members engaged in “substantiated claims of sexual misconduct;" another 10 former faculty and staff were accused of engaging in sexual misconduct; 11 other current and former faculty and staff were accused of sexual misconduct, but because the allegations were made anonymously, they could not be substantiated.
“The School failed to protect students from sexual abuse and sexual misconduct done to them by adults entrusted with their care,’’ the statement said. Administrators “failed to adequately investigate allegations of sexual abuse or sexual misconduct when they were brought to the attention of School leadership – a failing that has damaged trust in the School.”
The investigation was led by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger and the Boston law firm Casner & Edwards.
The school recently gained unwelcome notoriety from the prosecution of former student Owen Labrie, who was convicted in 2015 or sexually assaulting an underage girl on campus.
