by Staff
The following letter was submitted to the Board of Education on Monday by Dani McTiernan Huge, a student representative on the city’s school board and a junior at Wilbur Cross High School. The letter addresses the district’s response to Hillhouse Assistant Principal Daniel Bonet’s alleged sexual assault of a student during school hours.
Dear New Haven Public Schools Board of Education Members,
It has been almost five months since Jane Doe, a student at Hillhouse High School, was reportedly sexually assaulted by Hillhouse Assistant Principal Daniel Bonet in his office during school hours. She was brave enough to report this to Hillhouse staff who are mandatory reporters. They then honored their obligation by reporting this up, where it reached Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF), the Hillhouse principal, and New Haven police.
You would think that after this report, the Hillhouse assistant principal would not be allowed access to Hillhouse’s building or its students. That is not what happened here.
The very next day of school, which was after a three-day weekend, Assistant Principal Bonet was somehow able to return to the building, and had the authority to call for a school lockdown. How could this happen?
From what we can see as students, there has been no accountability by the board for this egregious failure.
We need to know that our safety matters, that our voices matter, and that New Haven Public Schools will protect us, especially with a societal issue this upsetting and damaging.