Mother of student raped by teacher taking action against school board
POMPANO BEACH, Fla. (WSVN) -- A mother is filing a lawsuit against the Broward County School Board after she says the Board did not do enough to protect her daughter from a teacher who now stands accused of sexually assaulting the girl.
According to reports, 43-year-old Conraad Hoever, a math teacher at Blanche Ely High School, had been accused of sexual assault two years prior to the March 2007 attack on the mother's 15-year-old daughter. Two other female students filed complaints against Hoever in the 2004-05 school year.
The mother of Hoever's latest victim filed the civil rights lawsuit after she says the school board and the high school's principal at the time did not properly investigate the prior complaints. "I am very angry with the school, nothing was done about it two years ago when it was reported, and I think something should have been done about it," said the victim's mother.
Hoever is out on bail, awaiting a criminal trial for two counts of sexual battery. He faces accusations that he raped the 15-year-old female student at school. According to reports, he called the student back into his classroom where he pushed her up against a wall and assaulted her. "And that's when he pushed me against the wall and pinned me up telling me, 'I'll take care of you, just give it to me,'" said the young victim, "and I was struggling with him, and he grabbed his hand trying to make me kiss him."
Jeffrey Herman, the family's lawyer believes the school could have prevented the attack had they fired Hoever following the earlier accusations. "This is unfortunately yet another case of a child being sexually abused that should not have happened," said the victim's attorney, Jeffrey Herman. "We believe that if the school board acted properly an responsibly, that this teacher would have been long removed, and it's time that institutions start protecting children and not the abusers."
Former school principal of Blanche Ely high school, Dr. Sam Scavella, who was employed during the time of the first two complaints, says there was no justifiable reason to take action following an investigation of the earlier incidents. Scavella claims he notified the Special Investigative Unit within the Broward County School board, and Hoever was removed from the school while they looked into the allegations. Once the investigation concluded, Hoever was then reinstated.
Scavella says he followed school policy and protocol and did nothing wrong. He has since moved to Georgia in 2005 to pursue a different career opportunity.
The victim's mother says her daughter was forced to spend her first year of high school at another school, and she says she is still traumatized by the alleged attack. "She can't sleep at night, she does a lot of crying off and on and asks herself why did this have to happen to her, and I let her know everyday that it's not her fault and to just keep living and keep her head up as much as you can."
(Copyright 2007 by The Sunbeam Television Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
