Loomis Chafee, a private boarding school in Windsor, Connecticut, says a law firm hired to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct at the school found reports of employee sexual misconduct from as far back as the 1940s until the early 2000s.
“We, along with the entire Board of Trustees and the school community, apologize unreservedly to those affected. We know that no action that we take today will erase the deep pain caused, but we do hope that our commitment to confront all such behavior now and in the future may bring some healing,” Christopher Norton, chair of the board of trustees for Loomis Chaffee, and Sheila Culbert, head of school, wrote in a statement released to the school community.
The law firm, Cowdery & Murphy, conducted the investigation and found the alleged misconduct ranged from sexual advances to sexual abuse. While investigators found individuals credible, they could not fully investigate some of them for a variety of reasons, according to the statement from the school.
“None of the reports investigated involved incidents of misconduct toward today's current students,” the statement from the school says.
School officials said administrators were not aware of the abuse two faculty members were accused of and provided them with reference letters.
They reported another faculty member to Windsor Police, school officials said, and another staff member pleaded guilty to a crime related to allegations of inappropriate relations, according to Loomis Chaffee.
“As we considered the report and its findings, it is clear that the school should have handled some situations better. We did not report every instance of misconduct; we provided references for a small number of employees who had violated boundaries with students; and when we became aware of past abuse, we did not always follow up with an investigation,” Norton and Culbert said in the letter. “Finally, our reporting mechanisms and training for students and faculty around these issues were minimal.”
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They went on to apologize and said they are committed to protecting students from potential future sexual misconduct and have provided training sessions on boundary issues, sexual misconduct and mandatory reporting.
