Response of administration to Pott situation draws criticism

In recent weeks, Saratoga High and district administrators have come under increasing fire for their decisions in the weeks following the suicide of sophomore Audrie Pott last September.

New court documents, which assert that the administration knew from early on about the bullying and sexual assault investigation led by law enforcement, have left some observers wondering why the school never expelled the alleged offenders.

Although administrators have declined to speak with the media about the situation, including The Falcon, the district did offer a detailed response to allegations on April 17, five days after news broke nationally that three sophomore boys had been arrested in the case.

The boys were accused of sexual battery and distributing child pornography along with two other felony charges. Two of the boys were arrested at school. The third was arrested at the school he now attends in Gilroy.

The release said even though students have a fundamental right to an education, they do not have the same right to membership on a sports team. According to the press release, the administration decided to remove the two boys who played on the football team and “not allow them to represent the school [on the football team].” 

“Participation in sports is a privilege,” the release stated. “The district therefore had more latitude and discretion when limiting privileges as opposed to rights.” 

In addition, all student athletes must sign an athletic code of conduct and can be removed from their team upon violation of the contract. 

Junior Wilson Kung, a member of the varsity football team, knew the boys and said he supported the removal of the two football players from the team.

“The coach [Tim Lugo] was always telling us to behave ourselves,” Kung said. “They definitely should be punished to that extent. They knew what they were doing.” 

The Pott family has filed a legal document that faults the district for  failing to document a meeting in the  spring of 2012 concerning bullying, announcing Pott’s death before notifying the family, determining the death was not caused by bullying and using The Falcon newspaper to survey the school to search for viral pictures in addition to the administration’s failure to expel the boys. 

Such a claim allows the family to take legal action against the district in the future.

"We will continue to investigate the potential liability of the district for the death of Audrie and if we gather sufficient evidence, we will be filing a civil claim in Superior Court," Pott family attorney Robert Allard said in a media statement.

The attorney said that the district was negligent “in addressing the bullying Audrie Pott encountered while at Saratoga High School.”

Among other points, they allege that the district failed to document a meeting that the Pott family had with the administration concerning the bullying of Audrie during the spring of 2012.

However, in its April 17 press release, the district claims that while the counseling session between the administration and the parents did occur, bullying was not discussed.

“Since [Pott’s] death, we have thoroughly examined our counseling records,” according to the district’s press release. “While we are precluded by law from divulging the specifics of any counseling session with parents and students, we can say that the subject of bullying was not the issue covered in those conversations.”

Nonetheless, according to an April 16 Mercury News article, the Pott family remembers telling school administrators, a year before Pott committed suicide, about the bullying she faced.

“[The family] said they were not satisfied by the school's response, and that they believe the report of their complaint was lost when the school changed principals,” the article said.

The family’s claim also accuses the district of “making the determination shortly after Audrie’s passing that, despite compelling evidence to the contrary, bullying played no role in this tragedy.”

The allegation concerns principal Paul Robinson’s comments that appeared on Sept. 25 in the San Jose Mercury News.

The article contains quotes from Robinson stating that “what led to [the tragedy] is a million different things that happened over a lifetime … To believe that there was one thing that happened, especially in this case, is not right.”

At that time, Robinson also denied the rumor that Pott took her own life as a result of bullying, though it’s unclear how full the administration’s understanding of events was at that time.

Some, including Pott’s stepmother Lisa Pott, believe Robinson misrepresented the situation.

According to Lisa Pott, Robinson already knew about the bullying by the time he gave the interview to the Mercury News.

In a column published on April 16, San Jose Mercury News columnist Scott Herhold leveled similar criticisms at Robinson.

Herhold pointed to a letter about the sexual assault, which the administration received from a student in late September.

“By the time Robinson made his public comments, investigators had talked to the three alleged perpetrators — and gotten admissions that the letter was essentially true,” Herhold wrote. “Why did [the principal] dismiss the notion of a particular incident?” 

Some students, however, believe that Robinson has been unfairly criticized.

“I think everything has been pretty sensationalized in the media,” senior Matt Yee said. “It really is difficult for anybody to be able to pinpoint a single exact reason for what happened.”

After reporting on its website that an illicit photo of Pott had not gone viral, The Falcon was included in the Pott family’s claim against the district.

The family said it was “gravely concerned about several actions taken by the district, including … using school resources, through its school newspaper or otherwise, to conduct a ‘head count’ of the students who laid eyes on a photograph of the sexual assault on Audrie in order to rebut a claim of a ‘viral’ distribution …”

The four Falcon editors-in-chief say that they didn’t coordinate with the district in any of the paper’s coverage. They added that articles published by the newspaper are not reviewed or in any way controlled by the administration.

“We aren’t in any way affiliated with the administration,” said Falcon editor-in-chief Samuel Liu. “They don’t review our publication in any way, and the only contact we had with the administration was after our initial stories were published — an interview request [that was turned down].”