Reply to GDS Student Newspaper posts about the horrible incident

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[quote=Anonymous]Since this has been reported on and thousands of people got this email yesterday:

Dear GDS Parents and Community Members:

We are writing to ask for your help and to warn you of an unaddressed danger at Georgetown Day School.

In November 2024, our 11-year-old son was anally raped in the fourth floor/7th-and-8th grade bathroom at GDS, between classes, during a regular school day, by two young male perpetrators who covered their faces and disguised their voices while ambushing and assaulting our child. As far as we know, the perpetrators were — and are still — students at GDS. (There are some details that we are not able to share due to legal constraints and ongoing investigations.)

Our primary goals since we learned of this assault, in January 2025, have been to support our traumatized child, gather any information about this sexual assault, and protect other children at GDS. We pulled both of our children from GDS last winter. We shared details of the rape with Russell Shaw, Kelsey Schroeder, and Meg Rabinowitz (who has since left GDS) in February 2025 and notified the GDS Board of Trustees on two separate occasions, in March 2025 and May 2025. Though we cooperated and were interviewed by a third party investigator hired by GDS, they have not shared the investigative report with us. Our primary and persistent ask has been for GDS to send a notification email about the sexual assault to the GDS community. They have not done so.

For a year, we have asked the GDS administration to share this critical safety information with you — parents of children who might be in danger or who might have been similarly attacked. However, the GDS administration and Board of Trustees have failed to provide any information about the assault to the parent community. Therefore, despite the safety and privacy concerns for our family, we are advising you directly that this happened to our son at GDS and warning you of what we see as an ongoing threat on the GDS campus. We are also reaching out in the hope of gathering more information about what happened to our child while in the care of the School.

The Metropolitan Police Department detectives involved with the case have found our son’s allegations to be credible, as have his therapists, but as of today, the police believe they need more evidence for an arrest. We are hoping this notification will encourage anyone with information potentially relevant to this assault to come forward. Though we are not sharing our names or our child’s name in writing to protect his privacy, we recognize that some of you know who we are — which is fine. We have nothing to be ashamed of, and we are proud of our child for reporting this horrific assault to us and now to you, since many rape survivors never tell anyone — because of shame, fear, and awareness of how sexual assault survivors are treated.

Every American is surrounded by evidence of sexual assaults, including child rape, where victims are shamed, ignored, and disbelieved. Similarly, as GDS touts their annual Summit on Sexual Assault and Consent, the School’s reaction to our family has caused us to question whether they truly want to “support survivors, advocate for rights, and prevent sexual assault,” and whether they view male-on-male rape as less of a crime than male-on-female rape. Our family’s pain has been exacerbated by GDS’s refusal to share critical information with parents and seek the community’s help in eliciting evidence that might lead to the identification of the perpetrators and accountability for this horrible crime.

We know this is distressing news: Our child was just 11 years old when was he was raped at school, at GDS, where he should have felt safe and been safe. If you or your children know anything about the sexual assault of our son, or any other potentially relevant evidence, please contact Detective A.J. Makanoff (contact information below) or our attorney Sandra Musumeci (contact information below).

Most critically, we hope your children remain safe.

-A Former GDS Family[/quote]

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