I Team

Parents claim 7-year-old sexually harassing 2nd-grade daughter

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Sexual misconduct in a Vance County elementary school

Parents of a little girl say her life has been made hell by a 7-year-old boy, and that the school is slow to respond.

HENDERSON, North Carolina -- The small, mostly brick elementary school sits on a somewhat busy country road in Vance County. There's a gas station next door. Not much else around.

That's where we met Perry and Kristi Williams. They're the parents of a little girl who attends the school and who -- according to her two biggest champions - has been put through hell there for the past few months.

What they had to say may seem hard to accept at first: A 7-year old boy in their daughter's second-grade class at New Hope Elementary (we won't name either child in this story) had been physically assaulting their little girl since October; twice, she reported she'd been sexually harassed.

What's more, they said, top officials at the school and at the Vance County school system knew about it and did little to stop it.

"I've been to the school, talked to the principal, talked to the assistant superintendent, and it hasn't gotten anywhere," Perry Williams told the I-Team.

He said the boy was repeatedly punished -- the school system suspended him twice -- but each time, the school put the two children back in the same class.

In December, before winter break, Williams said the school moved the boy from his daughter's classroom but left them in lunch together. He said it happened again almost immediately.

"He was kissing at her in the lunchroom," Williams said.

He also said the boy grabbed his daughter's bottom on more than one occasion and poked her in the eye with a pencil.

Vance County School District spokeswoman Terri Hedrick had little comment, saying only, "Our policy is not to comment on individual children's issues."

Williams said he blames the school for putting his daughter in danger and is considering legal action.

"That young man needs to get some help," he said. "It's not just going to stop with my child. It's going to keep going if they don't look into it. I feel they need to be held accountable for their neglect."