The state Department of Education has ordered Milton schools to formally investigate allegations that a 9-year-old student was harassed and assaulted because her mother is a lesbian. Officials also want the district to train all staff on procedures for handling such allegations.
In documents the state agency sent last month to the student's mother, Virginia Gaffey, the agency concluded that the district had mishandled Gaffey's complaint that the girl was targeted last fall by classmates after they learned about Gaffey's sexual orientation. Gaffey made the documents available to the Globe.
The Department of Education did not investigate the alleged incidents, only Milton's handling of the matter.
In addition to an investigation and training, the agency ordered the district to include a copy of its harassment policy in student handbooks that covers all protected categories, including sexual orientation; to submit a copy of its investigation, resolution, and any disciplinary action to the state; and to provide Gaffey with copies of any records concerning the alleged incidents.
The district, which serves about 3,700 students, must report back to the Department of Education and to Gaffey by March 21 on the measures it has taken.
Department spokesman JC Considine declined to comment on the state's action. Milton's school superintendent, Magdalene Giffune, could not be reached for comment.
The chairman of the town's School Committee, Beirne Lovely, said yesterday that the district is evaluating the order and may rebut some parts of the report.
"We feel, in at least some of these instances, we can prove we have done the training," Lovely said.
He also asserted that the board recently undertook a "rigorous and thoughtful review" of its policies, which were then reviewed by its counsel.
"If there are deficiencies that are proven, we will comply fully with" the Department of Education, he said.
Lovely criticized the state report for what he called its "failure to distinguish facts from allegations" in some areas.
He specifically referred to one sentence that included the phrase "actual incidents of harassment."
"Clearly, they should not be coming to a conclusion about any aspect of these allegations, even whether they occurred," he said. "They admit they didn't investigate the allegations."
Last fall, Gaffey and her lawyer, Claudia Gregoire, asked school officials to institute a formal curriculum in sensitivity and tolerance at all levels of the school system after what they said was harassment and bullying of Gaffey's daughter at the Tucker Elementary School from January 2007 until the girl was transferred last fall to the Glover Elementary School.
Gaffey later expanded her demands to include an antiharassment and antibullying policy.
Gaffey has filed a separate complaint with the US Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, alleging discrimination on the basis of sex and on the basis of disability, because of what Gaffey says were unwarranted changes to her daughter's special-education plan.
She also asked the office of the state attorney general to launch an investigation, but no action has been taken on the matter.
Gaffey said the verbal harassment of her daughter began in January 2007 after the girl's third-grade classmates learned about Gaffey's sexual orientation. The situation escalated, Gaffey said, culminating in what Gregoire termed, in a letter to school officials last fall, a "group assault" by several Tucker students on Sept. 10. Gaffey has said that up to seven students surrounded her daughter on the playground and pushed her and that two hit her.
