NAACP Demands CMS Do More To Protect Students After 5-Year-Old Alleges Sex Assault On Bus

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The NAACP Charlotte-Mecklenburg branch held a news conference in Uptown Tuesday, demanding that Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools do more to protect students. Their campaign comes after a five-year-old student reported being sexually assaulted by at least one other student on a Croft Community Elementary school bus earlier this month.

The student’s mother, Andrea Higgins, was also at the news conference. She told reporters her daughter was assaulted on the school bus on Monday, February 6th. Higgins says, “She said, ‘I was beaten up.’ From there, it progressed to her telling me exactly what happened.” Higgins adds, “As a five-year-old, she knows nothing about the things she talked about that day.”

Higgins says she took her daughter to the hospital the next morning, and while she was there, contacted CMPD and the school. She says the school principal was at first sympathetic, and promised her an investigation. Higgins says, “Three weeks later, I haven’t gotten a call to say, ‘hey, how’s she doing?'”

Higgins says she asked for the boy or boys who assaulted her child to at least be removed from the bus. She says the principal told her, “‘No, they are innocent until proven guilty.’ That was her exact words.”

“Which is absolutely ridiculous, that is a court standard, that is not something a principal should be trying to apply,” says Annette Albright, the Education Chair with the NAACP Charl0tte-Mecklenburg chapter. Albright says that Title IX instructs schools to “…do what you need to do to make sure, ensure, that these students are not coming in contact with each other.”

She, and Higgins, also take issue with the school assigning another child to sit with the girl and her sister on the school bus. Albright says, “They were going to assign another child to protect a five-year-old from another sexual assault. Make that make sense.”

A CMS spokesperson provided WCCB with a statement that reads, in part, “We are aware of the recent report. As soon as the school became aware of the incident they immediately contacted Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Police and the Title IX office.

Onsite counseling services and other supportive measures have been offered for those impacted by the incident.

We are working collaboratively with law enforcement agencies during their investigation and the Title IX office is working with the school to ensure a proper investigation is conducted.

We want to emphasize that the school followed the proper protocol when they were notified of the incident. We have been working diligently to ensure that we are handling this matter appropriately. As a reminder, we are required under federal law not to impose any disciplinary action or sanctions until the investigation is complete.”

CMS has been sued, in the recent past, over its handling of sex crimes on campuses in the district.

WCCB News @ Ten anchor Gary Brode was at the news conference and will have more information on WCCB News @ Ten.