Oklahoma special-needs student suffered from sexual assault, mom says in lawsuit against school

A lawsuit filed against an Oklahoma school district accuses officials of failing to provide adequate safeguards for special-needs students, which the plaintiff argues allowed a sexual assault against her daughter, according to Griffin Media’s News on 6.

“I hope that they learn to do better, to be proactive,” said Anita Varnell, the mom of a 17-year-old student in Broken Arrow Public Schools. “The claims in my lawsuit, I stand behind, and it’s unfortunate that it had to come to a point that somebody has to file a lawsuit to make change.”

Another student texted Varnell’s daughter while they were on campus before the school day began, asking her to meet him in the boys’ bathroom, according to the news outlet.

“The lawsuit says she told him she didn’t want to, but she did, and that’s when he pulled her into a stall and sexually assaulted her.”

While Varnell’s daughter is high functioning, her mother had requested an aide for her to help her get to classes.

“I have requested a door-to-door (aide) for her because she does do some gen ed-classes, so she needs supervision,” she told journalists.

However, the high school was not providing anyone to supervise her daughter last December after this incident occurred, according to Varnell.

“I was like, ‘Wait, where was the para?’ I was in disbelief. I was … on a company trip, and I was on my way back, so I couldn’t do a whole lot of anything. I was scared.”

The district, which enrolls nearly 20,000 students, declined to comment regarding the case.

Other lawsuits in progress

The news comes as other districts nationwide have been accused of failing to fulfill their responsibilities regarding special-needs students.

In Maine, a mom has sued Portland Public Schools after her daughter did not receive any services recommended in the criminal case against a former special education technician, who was convicted of sexually exploiting her.

“Plaintiffs have suffered extensive damages and damages must be provided in such amount as to send a message to all similarly situated public school institutions that the behavior will not be tolerated,” the lawsuit said.

The technician, Benjamin Conroy, was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison in 2023. He died in October 2024.

“The lawsuit claims that the department knew that the (special-needs) program … was severely understaffed in regards to educational technicians,” the local ABC affiliate reported.

The district failed to implement a “meaningful” screening of Conroy’s application, background check or contact with previous employers, according to the outlet.

“At the time of the sexual exploitation that Conroy was convicted of, he was working with the girl one-on-one, which the lawsuit says violates the district’s policy and contradicted what the child’s mother had been promised in terms of only female technicians working with her daughter.”