Laurie Vandermeulen, a teaching assistant in Loudoun County, Virginia, alleged the embattled district covered up her sexual assault charges and fired her as reprisal for speaking up in a “Ingraham Angle” exclusive.
Who is Laurie Vandermeulen?
Vandermeulen said that a student molested her, groped her, and forced his hands over her privates up to 80 times in one day, and that authorities just suggested her to wear an apron and cover her genitalia with cardboard as a precaution.
Vandermeulen enlisted the help of another teacher to bring up the incidents at a school board meeting, alleging retaliation. Vandermeulen said she and the other teacher were warned their contracts would be terminated at an unrelated hearing, prompting her to go public during a Tuesday board session.
“I’ve been a victim of sexual assault before, and now I’ve been victimized again for coming out. Teachers are being bullied into silence on your watch, and my removal is nothing short of revenge “she stated at the hearing
Ingraham pressed Vandermeulen on why Loudoun is “involved in [another] brazen cover-up.”
“It makes no sense to me,” the educator responded. “We wanted assistance in our classroom with the behavior. We wanted to be mandated reporting to happen. We want our jobs. We want to be there. We want to be with the kids. And, you know, we continued to try to escalate things to get that help. And we lost our jobs.”
She recounted being given a “small piece of cardboard” to hold in front of her, saying that the apron was the summary level of recourse the district offered.
“I never could have imagined that it would be like this. All we were trying to do is to help a student that we felt was in need,” she said.
“And for whatever reason, they didn’t want to do that. They didn’t want to help us with that.”
She said her experience sends a message to other teachers that speaking up about such behavioral violations can put their “job on the chopping block.”
Mckourage
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