5th-Grader Suspended for Sexual Harassment

A fifth-grader at Rose Drive Elementary School has been suspended for a day after allegedly making an inappropriate comment to a classmate about her body, the principal said Thursday.

“Naturally, she was very upset,” said Phil Hergenreder, the school principal. “I spoke to him and he admitted to making the comment.”

Hergenreder said the incident occurred Wednesday afternoon at the end of a physical education class. The boy approached the girl and “made a very inappropriate comment about [her] body parts,” the principal said, declining to elaborate.

The boy’s action violated school district and state policies regarding sexual harassment, Hergenreder said.

The Rose Drive Elementary suspension follows two well-publicized suspensions involving elementary students and sexual-harassment allegations. In those incidents, in North Carolina and New York City, a first-grader and a second-grader were suspended for sexual harassment after they kissed their classmates.

In August, a set of federal guidelines was sent to school districts nationwide warning that schools that did not take adequate steps to stop sexual harassment would be in violation of a federal law.

Hergenreder said there is no comparison between his student and the other recent cases.

“I think there’s a significant difference between a first-grade boy kissing a first-grade girl and a fifth-grade boy making inappropriate comments about a fifth-grade girl’s body parts,” the principal said.

As a rule, he said, he meets with students in an assembly on the first day of school and reviews school regulations.

“For fourth- and fifth-graders, I include informing them regarding sexual harassment rules and regulations in that assembly,” he said. A copy of the policy then is included in an orientation packet that is sent home with the students.

Hergenreder said he has discussed the boy’s suspension, effective today, with the boy’s mother “and she has been very cooperative.”