By Kylie Marsh
Kylie.marsh@triangletribune.com
A family is seeking legal action against the Wake County Public Schools System for its mishandling of an alleged sexual assault of a kindergartner during the 2023-24 school year.
The student (the family requested anonymity), who was 5 years old at the time, attended Wake Forest iStem Magnet Elementary School. The parent said she noticed something was wrong when their son had regressed in toilet training. “He started becoming very aggressive, being afraid to go to the bathroom,” she said.
According to Stop It Now!, a nonprofit organization that equips adults to stop child sexual abuse, sudden bedwetting in a previously toilet-trained child is a warning sign of sexual abuse.
The child told his parents that “there were monsters in the bathroom,” and regressed to sleeping in bed with them. One night after wetting the bed, he told his mother that another minor male student entered the school’s bathroom and proceeded to touch, stroke and kiss his penis.
“We were highly concerned, not just for our son but for that child,” the parent said. “Exactly what is he being exposed to that he would come to school and do this, and is he doing this to the other kids?”
The parents immediately took him to the hospital and called the police, who determined the story was consistent and filed a report to Wake County Child Protective Services. The parents then met with Wake Forest iStem Principal Chell Smith on April 22, 2024.
Neither Wake County Public Schools nor Smith responded to The Tribune for comment.
An audio recording of portions of that meeting was provided to The Tribune. In the meeting, Smith is heard telling the parents that “CPS won’t do anything about it. When it’s two children, they won’t get involved,” Smith said. “It’s an odd rule that they have about children. It has to be someone who is an adult.”
Smith also says she will speak to the other student’s parents to “find out what’s going on. This is a serious issue.”
North Carolina General Statutes § 7B-301 requires that anyone suspecting abuse or neglect shall report, and “a report is required when a reporter has cause to suspect that any juvenile is abused, neglected.”
According to lawsuit filings, the child told his teacher, who instructed the accused student to stop. The alleged victim’s mother told The Tribune that Smith said she was personal friends with the student’s mother, and in a second meeting, Smith informed her the accused student admitted to “ball checking,” or conversations about the size of other boys’ testicles.
The purpose of the second meeting was to plan so their son could return to school on the condition that he didn’t have to be around the other student. However, the conversation in the recording centers around their child’s academic performance, in which Smith threatens to hold him back a year. The parents believed this was retaliatory action.
In the recording, Smith pulls up the student’s report card minutes later, showing that he is on grade level for all subjects. She then changes her tone, saying the threat of retention “depends on his grades in the fourth quarter.”
Smith was unwilling to move the students to separate classrooms. “I can’t make definite decisions when I don’t have definitive proof or anything to make a decision based on,” she says in the recording. “I would just be taking one child’s word over another. In this situation, that would work for you, but it certainly wouldn’t work for the other child; but if the tables were turned, it wouldn’t work for you.”
Before attending Wake Forest iStem Elementary, the alleged victim was protected under the Federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, because the family is living in homeless hotels. The Act provides accommodations to students who are housing insecure for their academic success, such as access to Wi-Fi.
The parent said Wake Forest iStem did not set up an IEP or identify him for McKinney-Vento protections. She believes this is a violation of his civil rights. The couple has since removed him from Wake Forest Elementary.
“Whenever somebody reports a sexual assault incident, it doesn’t matter if it’s validated or not. The principal had a due diligence to start a Title XI investigation, which means she was supposed to let her higher ups know that a sexual assault had been reported,” the mother told The Tribune.
But state documents show zero sexual assaults for that school year.
While the parents are working full-time, sometimes spending up to 16 hours in a vehicle to make a living off tips from food delivery work, they are also trying to juggle full-time online school and therapy for their son.
The mother told The Tribune their story exhibits the “systemic failures” they have endured, and they are now seeking a civil rights attorney. To complicate the suit, North Carolina public school districts have a protection called “governmental immunity,” essentially shielding the state and local governments from lawsuits in civil matters, via N.C. G.S. § 115C‑
