A statement issued Aug. 5 from the Carroll ISD board of trustees outlined the district’s responses to the four Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights complaints levied against it.

The details

The board’s statement included relevant timelines of events and facts surrounding each of the four complaints. According to the statement, the cases were “involving allegations of student-to-student or peer harassment. None allege district personnel engaged in any form of harassment.”

The statement included the board’s argument that in order for there to be a violation of the law, the district would have allowed the following:
  • Harassment created a hostile educational environment for the victim
  • The district had actual knowledge of the harassment
  • The district had control over the harasser and the environment in which the harassment occurred
  • The district acted deliberately indifferent to the harassment
The statement said the facts of each case show there was no “hostile educational environment” and why, even if there were, CISD was not deliberately indifferent to it.

“CISD must defend itself against these baseless allegations,” the statement said.


Zooming in

An Aug. 5 letter sent to the Office of Civil Rights authored by board President Cameron Bryan and Superintendent Lane Ledbetter states the district has repeatedly asked the office to share its factual findings with the district regarding the complaints so district officials could evaluate them.

“Despite that earnest request, you have allowed the clock to run out on this time period,” Bryan and Ledbetter wrote in the letter.

Since, according to Bryan and Ledbetter, the Office of Civil Rights is not willing to provide the district with information it needs to negotiate a resolution, the district “has no other choice” but to declare an impasse.


Furthermore, in the district’s statement, Carroll ISD's board said they have “serious concerns” about entering into a resolution without first understanding the rationale for its requirements. District officials also accuse the Office of Civil Rights of repeatedly pressuring school districts into "burdensome" resolution agreements without proving the schools violated the law.

“Once the school district agreed to the government’s requirements, the districts later learned that the OCR had insufficient evidence for the allegations, made no findings, or actually found there was no harassment or deliberate indifference,” the statement said. “We look forward to defending the district at all levels of this process.”