Maxine Duncan felt like something was bothering her teenage daughter. It was just about a month into the school year.
“I was just like, maybe she’s just having a bad day, but those days added up…When finally I asked her, I said, ‘What is wrong with you? What is wrong?’ I said, ‘Did something happen to you?’” Duncan recalled. “And then she started crying, and she said, ‘Yes.’”
Duncan’s daughter asked KCAW not to use her name but gave her mother permission to speak on-the-record. She told her mother she’d been sexually assaulted by a fellow student at Mt. Edgecumbe High School.
“And even in that initial moment of her opening up to me, and I knew it was bad, I didn’t ask her to tell me the story right then there,” Duncan said. “I said, ‘Hold on one moment, I’m going to call your dad so you don’t have to keep repeating yourself.’”
The family reported the assault to the Sitka Police Department immediately, and the police officer told them he would notify the school and initiate an investigation.
Duncan said over the next several weeks, they had three in-person meetings with school leadership. In that time, she said no safety plan was implemented, and getting information about the investigation was challenging. Throughout that process, she said her daughter was met with skepticism from school leaders.
“When a student reports a sexual assault, the expectation is not perfection, it’s protection,” Duncan said in a statement she shared with KCAW.
She says it was unclear what steps the school was taking to keep her daughter safe and their requests for information were getting them nowhere. In that time, Duncan’s daughter’s grades slipped, and she took to hiding in bathrooms between classes, skipping lunch and cheer practice to avoid the student in common areas.
“They would have sent him home faster if he had started a fight than had put my daughter’s life in endanger,” she says. “Not only when it happened, but for the next three and a half weeks, while he wasn’t even being on restriction, and any type of little guidance that we got, it was never to make us feel safe.”
And she said the school’s protocol for responding to sexual assault allegations was also unclear. Peeling through the school’s handbook and website didn’t help. KCAW found the same problem.
According to federal law, Duncan and her family should not have been left in the dark. Title IX, the 1972 federal civil rights law prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools, including sexual harassment and assault. Kayleigh Baker is an attorney and senior supervising consultant with TNG Consulting, an organization that specializes in risk management in higher education, including Title IX. Baker says in 2020, Title IX regulations were updated to include detailed guidance on the formal grievance process.
“When we have an allegation, and a complainant files what is called a formal complaint, requesting an investigation, then the school has to do several things as dictated by these regulations, which are binding on all schools in the US,” Baker said. “The process is pretty rigid, and it’s pretty robust.”
If the grievance process is followed, Baker said there’s information that has to be provided to both parties before interviews can occur. Appeal rights must be offered, and before an investigation is finalized, all parties have the right to review and comment on any evidence that was collected. The final investigation report should include that feedback.
“Then they also get a copy of that investigation report before a separate individual, who was not the decision maker and who is not serving as the Title IX coordinator, makes a determination as to whether or not policy is violated,” Baker said. (Editor’s Note: The requirement for an independent reviewer was removed in a 2024 update to Title IX, but those updates were vacated by a federal judge in 2025, reverting the regulations back to the 2020 standards).
The accused has rights too. Under Title IX, until the investigation concludes they cannot be punished and must have equal access to educational services, so the decision to allow the student to attend events was in line with the law.
An emergency removal can only occur once the school has done a risk analysis and determined the student poses an immediate threat to health and safety- she says that’s a very high bar to meet. However, Baker said schools can still separate students as part of the investigation process.
“There could be changes made to residence halls assignments, or perhaps changes made to academic class schedules, or perhaps staggering of dining hall times and some other things too,” Baker said. “Certainly the issuance of no contact orders or no contact directives are all very common supportive measures that can still be enacted.”
Duncan said her family didn’t receive any of that documentation at the time. After about a month had passed, a school administrator called them to say the investigation was complete and, Duncan said, the student was expelled. KCAW reviewed a letter that the family received from the state, which said the student had been charged with sexual assault. KCAW was unable to confirm the outcome of the charges since the student was a minor at the time. Duncan says at that moment, they didn’t want to pursue the case any further. Her daughter just wanted to feel like a high school student again.
More than three years have passed, and Duncan’s daughter is an adult now, and she wants to review the school’s files on her case. But when she reached out for documents, she got pushback. After being denied a couple of times, they finally secured their records from the city only after providing in-person identification, and the school could not find any relevant records to share with them, and directed them to the Sitka Police Department for investigation records.
If Title IX had been followed, a file from the grievance process including all of the collected evidence would still be available. Her family submitted a request under the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act and waited 45 days. In early March, Superintendent David Langford responded to their request via email, saying, “We have sent all the records we have. This is an event that happened years ago. If it was a serious incident it would have been reported to police,” and suggested they contact police for a case number.
Baker said it’s a common misconception in K-12 schools that if a police investigation is initiated, the school has done its due diligence, but it hasn’t. Schools are required to do an independent investigation that’s separate from a police investigation under Title IX. And they must keep files from those investigations for seven years.
“Not only do I wish that more administrators recognized that this school has an independent obligation to conduct an investigation and provide a process and provide support,” Baker said. “But I want families and students to know that as well, right, that going to law enforcement does not mean that you’re not entitled to a process at your school.”
KCAW reached out to school leadership and the Commissioner of Education, Deena Bishop for comment on this case and to learn more about how Title IX is currently being implemented at the school. In a response to our inquiry on March 19, Bishop said Mt. Edgecumbe takes all reports of sexual misconduct and their obligations under Title IX seriously.
Bishop said based on the available information the report was taken seriously by staff at the time and referred to the proper authorities. She said supportive measures were offered to Duncan’s daughter consistent with school practices, and the alleged student withdrew from the school shortly thereafter.
However, Bishop said in reviewing the files, she and Superintendent Langford identified gaps in their Title IX process that were “concerning.” Specifically, that during and after leadership transitions between Spring and Fall of 2022, including the hiring of a new superintendent and principal, it was, “not clear how certain Title IX responsibilities and records were transferred during that period.”
Bishop said she and Langford are expediting efforts to meet and exceed federal requirements, performing a review of their procedures to ensure they are in compliance with Title IX and expanding training for staff, including the Title IX coordinator. She said moving forward the school’s superintendent will assume that role. On March 20, the school’s website was updated to include information on Title IX, including how to report discrimination or harassment, to its homepage.
Duncan’s daughter gave permission for KCAW to use her voice in this piece.
“As a teenager, you’re taught that if something bad happens, you are there are systems meant to protect you,” she said, reading from a statement.
“You’re told there are clear rules, clear processes and people who will step in when something goes wrong. But when I tried to rely on those systems, I saw how easily those clear rules were treated like suggestions instead of obligations.”
She and her family say they don’t want to see the school punished, they want accountability and policy change. They want to see the law applied.
“These protections exist because survivors before me fought for that civil right,” she said. “It’s a right I should have had, and having it properly applied could have lessened the emotion impact that I will carry for the rest of my life.
Commissioner Bishop said her office will continue to review the school’s records to determine whether more information around the case can be identified. Meanwhile, the Duncan family has obtained legal counsel and is looking into their options.
