COLCHESTER, Conn. — An incident on a school bus after a football game has turned into a nearly year-long nightmare for one Colchester family.
"I never wanted to go in public with this. I tried like any parent would. I tried to keep it as private as I possibly could because it's still my daughter," said Brian Hurlock of Colchester.
Hurlock said a Title IX investigation was launched in November of 2021 after an incident on a school bus that his daughter was on. She was among the cheerleaders riding the bus with the freshman football team after a game.
According to the results of that investigation, members of the freshman football team made sexually explicit and sexually violent comments, and simulated sex acts with their helmets.
"The students on the cheerleading team had to be subjected to this the whole bus ride back," Hurlock said.
Hurlock said the investigation was prompted by his complaint after his daughter told him what had happened.
The report concluded she was not sexually harassed, but it also named her.
"My daughter was getting pointed at and named and that's the girl," Hurlock said. "She spent the entire freshman school year isolated. Being tutored in the library by herself," he said.
Hurlock said his family spent the summer trying to figure out how to transfer his daughter to a different school district.
However, now they face another obstacle. He said the superintendent is asking him to sign a "release and settlement agreement" before she can transfer.
"It's a confidentiality agreement. This basically states that you're going to hold them not liable and in exchange, they'll pay for my daughter to go to another school. And obviously, that just defeats the entire purpose of what's right and what's wrong," Hurlock said.
He said he is not giving up and wants everyone to know it is okay to speak up if something happens to you.
"Change needs to happen. I'm standing up for my daughter. I'm proud of my daughter for stepping up and speaking against this. I'm very proud of her," he said.
FOX61 News left a message for the Colchester Schools superintendent but has not yet received a response. We have also reached out to the chair of the Board of Education.
Gaby Molina is a reporter and anchor at FOX61 News. She can be reached at gmolina@fox61.com. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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