At a school board meeting, Brittany Rohl comforted Darcy Bennet.
A sexual-abuse scandal is rocking a Long Island Junior-Senior High School.
A cascade of similar allegations was sparked by Brittany Rohl's account of being groomed by a teacher.
Insider was told about the "reckoning" by another accuser.
When the school district in New York announced that a high-school teacher had resigned, Brittany Rohl thought of about six names that could fit the bill.
Suffolk County police on Long Island said they found no evidence of a crime after investigating the allegations against the teacher. The incident motivated Rohl to speak out about her experience with a different teacher.
She told Insider that she felt like this was the time to come forward.
On November 8, a letter was written to the Board of Education by a woman who claimed that a former teacher at the school groomed her from the age of 16 and had a sexual relationship with her when she was 18. She wrote in the letter that the relationship left her feeling suicidal.
She had always dreamed of reckless behavior at her alma mater, but she didn't have much hope that it would happen.
She said it was a "surreal" experience to see how wrong she was.
A wave of women came forward with their own allegations against staff members at the school. Dozens of people told their stories at a school board meeting.
When more women stepped up to the microphone, she was surprised, but she expected a few other women to show up. She said that some people showed up at the meeting after watching the meeting unfold on the internet and decided to drive to speak.
"I thought that no one would try to tarnish her, and that no one would bat an eye about it," he said. It felt like a dream when I got a standing ovation at the end of my speech after seeing so many people show up to the meeting.
One of the women who spoke was a graduate. Bennet claimed that a former teacher at the school tried to kiss her when she was in the ninth grade and that she had been touched by him at a summer camp when she was a child. Bennet told Insider that the man was relieved of his coaching duties but allowed to continue teaching after she described his sexual advances to the guidance counselor. The teacher didn't return a request for comment.
Some evidence that might have supported their claims has most likely been lost over the past decade.
As she heard the stories of the other women, she cried a lot, she told Insider.
She's accused of abusing the teacher.
She said it was still heartbreaking to hear the people that were directly affected by it.
Five teachers at the school were placed on paid leave after the school board meeting.
A district spokeswoman told Insider that the district has full cooperation with any and all investigations undertaken by the New York State Department of Education.
New York's attorney general, Letitia James, announced Tuesday that her office was launching an investigation into claims of sexual abuse in the Babylon School District. A representative for the New York Department of Education told Insider that it took all allegations of wrongdoing against teachers very seriously, but could not confirm or deny whether any investigation was still ongoing.
A representative for the Suffolk County Police Department told Insider that no one had filed a complaint with the department as of Monday.
Inappropriate relationships between teachers and students were a problem in the high school.
Insider was told that the school's close-knit environment fostered an atmosphere in which inappropriate relationships between teachers and students went undetected. In the spring of this year, just109 students graduated from Babylon, which combines middle and high-school grade levels. Bennet told Insider that students regard teachers more as friends in this environment.
The students walked out of the school on November 16.
The small-school feel of Babylon created a "cult-like atmosphere" where complaints about teachers were ignored by the administration, according to the authors. Bennet told Insider that she felt like she was being put under a microscope when she was questioned about her tennis coach by a guidance counselor.
"I was terrified and told them that he was a family friend so I couldn't," she wrote. They didn't tell my family. He wasn't fired, but he was taken off as the tennis coach.
She said that the school board knew what was going on and that she had teachers tell her that. I don't know how this has been going on for so long and how people don't notice.
Linda Scordino, a former member of the Babylon Board of Education, spoke at the November 15 school-board meeting and supported Bennet's claims. Linda Rozzi was aware of some of the accusations made against teachers and coaches, according to Scordino.
Scordino, who served on the school board from 1994 to 2000 and was the wife of the town mayor who died last year, invited Rozzi to her house to give her some history and ask her for her help.
Bennet was in high school on the left and now on the right.
She came with a board member. "I outlined everything to her," Scordino said at the meeting. It is so frustrating to hear her say that they didn't know anything.
Rozzi did not reply to many requests from Insider.
At the meeting, Scordino said that she had been haunted by the fact that she didn't address abuse allegations at the school.
She said that she was not the type of person who gave up, but she had to live with that forever.
Accusers say they want to build a better school.
The men who they say abused them were not planning any legal action. They want to make sure the school protects other students.
"I'm not interested in money at all," Bennet said. I care more about what's happening in the future and getting Babylon back on its feet.
She said she didn't want any child to go through what she went through.
The school board needs to be restructured, starting with survivors or loved ones of survivors being put in charge.
She told Insider that survivors need to be in the rooms where decisions are being made. "We need to get a real autopsy of what happened here so that this doesn't happen again anywhere."
The original article is on Insider.
