Investigation finds Fort Collins high school failed to eliminate "racially hostile environment"

An investigation conducted by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) found that a Fort Collins high school sophomore was racially harassed by other students during the 2023-2024 school year, and a "preponderance of evidence" shows the school failed to respond appropriately.

The school in question, Liberty Common High School, is a charter school authorized by Poudre School District (PSD).

The investigation

Stephanie Watson Lewis filed the OCR complaint against both the school and PSD on Feb. 8, 2024, and the investigation was opened the following week.

The investigation was conducted under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits "discrimination based on race, color and national origin in programs or activities operated by a recipient of federal financial assistance," the document states.

Watson Lewis chose to send her oldest son to Liberty Common High School based on their academics and character education. Denver7 is not naming her son at the center of the investigation since he is a juvenile. He was a sophomore at the time of the harassment.

The filing states her son is multi-racial both Black and white. During the school year in question, there were 544 students enrolled at the school's 7-12 campus. The vast majority 82.90% identified as white. 6.25% were Asian, 4.78% were multi-racial, 4.60% were Hispanic, 1.10% were Black and 0.37% were American Indian or Alaskan Native.

He divulged that for the past six months, he had been racially discriminated against at his school," Watson Lewis said about the night when her son confided in her. I was in shock. I didn't even know what to even think. I immediately put in an email to the principal to talk about the situation.

On Jan. 27, 2024, after Watson Lewis was told about the harassment, the family emailed the principal to ask for a meeting to discuss the racial slurs other students were using against their son. Two days later, Watson Lewis had still not heard back, and called the principal to follow up on the email. The principal told her the email ended up in the spam folder.

The parents and principal met after school on Jan. 29, 2024. At that time, Watson Lewis explained to the principal what was happening.

She alleged students had used the n-word toward her son since the second week of school, called him "monkey," said he belonged in a cage and commented on how he must "like watermelon and fried chicken."

Watson Lewis described another instance where a student dropped to their knees in front of her son and mockingly said "Black Lives Matter."

It was happening for months, and what really upset me was that there were several mandated reporters teachers that knew about what was happening to my child and did nothing about it," Watson Lewis said.

When investigated by OCR, the principal of Liberty Common High School said, he did not look into the Black Lives Matter incident since the student in question was no longer enrolled at the school. The principal did not interview another student who claimed to have witnessed some of the harassment either.

The filing continues to state the principal did not investigate allegations surrounding the slurs because he was not given names of involved students. Watson Lewis told investigators the principal did not ask her or her son for more detail about such claims.

The day after meeting with Watson Lewis, the principal interviewed two students who admitted to making racial comments. The principal's notes, which are detailed in the report, say one student referred to Watson Lewis' son as a monkey in the context of jokes."

The two boys were given a "capstone research day" for the rest of the school day, where they researched the virtues for character education and "wrote about how their conduct was inconsistent with the virtues."

On Jan. 31, 2024, during a high school staff meeting, two staff members raised their hands when the principal asked if anyone had heard anything related to racial harassment of Watson Lewis' son. Staff are required to report any instances of bullying or discrimination to the administration.

One of the teachers who raised their hand was not disciplined because she "did not identify the harasser" after getting up from her desk to check the hallway.

The other teacher reported that in December of 2023, she heard a white student make "an inappropriate comment with racial undertones" saying what she recalled as, its getting dark around here. The teacher told the student that the comment was inappropriate, but did not document it or report it to the school's administration at the time. The teacher was not disciplined because "she did not do anything wrong."

I decided to take this to OCR when I felt like the school wasn't taking me seriously," Watson Lewis explained.

Text messages exchanged between school board members following an email from the family about the harassment were obtained and detailed in the OCR investigation. The messages are as follows:

and

'House leadership' at the school is essentially like a student council, the report says.

The investigation states that Watson Lewis' son felt singled out and stressed while at school, and at one point "seemed emotionally distressed."

He had anxiety. And here's a child that's very calm and was just really struggling with having to deal with just all of this negativity centered around school," Watson Lewis said. Its been very hard. You know, it's just unthinkable to even believe that I'm sending my child to a place where he should feel safe, and this is how things end up. I wish I could just say that like it ended last year, right? We had an instance again this year, and it's just unreal. It's unfathomable.

According to the OCR investigation, the school did not investigate whether Watson Lewis' son was experiencing a hostile environment, offer him counseling services or separate him from the harassers.

Based on OCR definitions, a hostile environment exists when harassment is so severe or pervasive that it "would have limited or denied the ability of reasonable person, of the same age and race or color as the victim, under similar circumstances, from participating in or enjoying some aspect of the recipients education program or activity."

OCR found a "preponderance" of evidence that the school "failed to take prompt or effective action to stop severe and pervasive peer harassment of the Student based on race at the School, to eliminate a known racially hostile environment for the Student, or to remedy its effects on the Student."

It continues to say, the school failed to fulfill it's duty to end the harassment and prevent it from happening in the future.

"To see it in black and white, on paper, it was infuriating. It has brought so much pain to our family over the last two years," Watson Lewis said. I'm going to be honest, I feel like I've been robbed of some of the joy that parents have when their child is, you know, moving through high school. It's just been very unfortunate.

At the time, the investigation found school staff "do not receive training about how to respond to student-to-student racial harassment." The harassment of students based on race is not addressed in either the Student Bullying Policy and Procedures nor its Student/Parent Handbook."

The filing does state that school policy prohibits discrimination based on race.

The response

Denver7 reached out to Liberty Common School, asking about changes that have been made since the OCR investigation report was released, specifically when it comes to training staff on how to respond to racial harassment between students.

A spokesperson with the school said, "Liberty Common staff are provided annual harassment and discrimination training that covers all protected classifications, including race." The statement continued to say that training is extended to the entire school community including students, employees, and guests.

Denver7 also asked Liberty Common School if they would like to respond to the OCR documents, which state school staff "did not adequately investigate" many of the allegations. The spokesperson responded by saying, "the Principal contemporaneously investigated situations as they were reported to him."

OCR was also concerned by the school's "incomplete recordkeeping," saying the school's records regarding the harassment of Watson Lewis' son "fell short" of recordkeeping obligations under Title VI.

In a statement, a spokesperson for PSD said, charter schools are largely independent of the district and manage their own training or disciplinary procedures for staff, meaning they are not responsible for training the staff at Liberty Common High School.

Since the OCR filing, PSD "extended support" to Liberty Common High School through its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator Delhia Mahaney.

Mahaney spoke in front of more than a dozen people who gathered in Fort Collins on Sunday evening to discuss her job within the school district.

What can we do? And I say, report. I don't care if my phone rings 20 times. I don't care how many phone calls I get. Report all the time, every time," Mahaney said. We talk so much about students being college and career ready, and we forget that all of our students need to be community ready too.

During her presentation, Mahaney said DEI training for all central office staff, building administration and mental health teams within PSD is either in-progress or on the horizon. She is also working on response training for all PSD staff, as required by Senate Bill 23-296.

How we approached it in our system was that we needed all staff to understand the law and the requirements of the law, and that it was first in order to respond, you have to recognize what is happening in the system, and you have to recognize when you are hearing or seeing things that can be considered discrimination and harassment," Mahaney explained. That's where we started, was how do you recognize and then how do you respond to those things in the moment that are in ways that support the person experiencing the discrimination or harassment, and then and offering supportive measures.

After Mahaney spoke to the group of parents, Watson Lewis shared her story as well.

They [Liberty Common School] had no policy centered around racial discrimination or harassment. So as a result, I've been able to connect Delhia with the school, and she's actually going out on Tuesday to review their new policy that they wrote to make sure that it actually fits in the framework," Watson Lewis told the crowd.

Watson Lewis also walked parents through how to file an OCR complaint if they must. Her goal is helping any other family who may find themselves in a similar situation.

We will remain at Liberty, because I believe that it's our job now to protect the generations to come, so that this never happens again to another student of any race, but students feel supported and protected and safe at school," said Watson Lewis. This is not the way that our society is meant to be. It's just not. Everyone should be supportive and loving of everyone within their community. Period.

On Aug. 12, 2024, PSD and Liberty Common High School entered into a Resolution Agreement with OCR to resolve the allegations raised by Watson Lewis. As part of that agreement, a team will determine what steps are needed to eliminate the hostile environment created by the harassment, review and revise their policies and procedures related to student-to-student harassment, and develop a standard form for employees, students and parents to report a complaint about harassment based on race.

The school must also train all staff about how to respond to harassment of students based on race.

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