Claremore Daily Progress

Verdigris

August 26, 2011

Parents allege Verdigris principal ignored sexual harassment by football players

Zack Stoycoff Staff Reporter

VERDIGRIS — Parents of a disabled Verdigris High School student say the school ignored reports that three football players were regularly touching their daughter and other students bullying her over a deformity.

The parents are suing the school for $75,000, claiming Principal Randy Risenhoover broke the state’s anti-bullying law by ignoring the reports.

The parents also want $10,000 from the mother of a girl they say injured their daughter in a fight after taunting her because she does not have a right hand.

None of the students are identified in the lawsuit.

“The best we can tell, nothing was ever done to the students,” said Brendan McHugh, the parents’ Claremore lawyer. “We don’t think the football players were even spoken to at all.”

Risenhoover and Verdigris Superintendent Mike Payne declined to comment Thursday.

The lawsuit was filed in Rogers County District Court last month and moved to federal court in Tulsa Aug. 19. A hearing has not been scheduled.

McHugh said the football players frequently touched the girl, who is now 16, on her private areas for about one month in fall 2009. It stopped after her parents contacted the parents of one of the players, he said.

It was unrelated to the fight, which happened months later, he said.

The lawsuit claims the victim and her mother told Risenhoover of both incidents verbally and in writing and that he downplayed the situations.

Both happened on school grounds with witnesses, McHugh said.

“When you get a report of sexual harassment, I’m not sure you have to believe the person right away but you have to do an investigation and talk to people to see what’s going on,” McHugh said, adding that it appeared the school did not investigate the reports.

He said the harassment hurt the girl’s self esteem and her nose was broken in the fight, which required hospitalization.

“She hasn’t had a nervous breakdown or anything like that, but it’s been something that’s been pretty damaging for her childhood,” he said. “She’s tough enough where I think because of her disability she’s gone through quite a bit in her life and she’s adapted to be a very tough little girl.”

The lawsuit claims the three football players harassed at least three other girls in the same way.

The girl who later injured the victim often followed and taunted her about her missing hand, usually joined by three or four other girls, McHugh said.

That girl’s mother knew of the bullying but refused to stop it, he said.

“We think under Oklahoma law that a parent, if they know their kid is doing something, they are held responsible,” he said.

He said the victim’s parents decided not to sue the football players’ parents because they intervened when told of the behavior.

State law requires schools to act against bullying, he said.

He cited the School Bullying Prevention Act, which requires schools to adopt an anti-bullying policy and authorizes administrators to protect students from bullying, but specifically releases schools from liability related to the law.

Administrators “can’t just say, ‘Here’s our policy. You have to follow it,’” McHugh said. “They’ve got more of a responsibility than that.”

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