A lawsuit was filed against the Lake Oswego School District on April 4 by a former student. The student cites Lake Oswego High School’s failure to investigate and discipline their rapist as the reason for this lawsuit. The lawsuit states the District failed to to initiate an investigation under Title IX, failed to initiate an investigation under its Policy JBA/GBN, failed to enforce the safety plan put in place to protect the victim, failed to supervise the rapist and failed to remove the rapist, who admitted to raping the student, to an alternative education setting. Lake Views policy is to not name victims of sexual assault.

This incident was first reported by Willamette Week.

The 18-year-old student was forced to unenroll from LOHS after missing over 10 days of school due to the trauma of seeing their assailant in the halls at school. A safety plan was drafted at the beginning of the school year between the student and administration to ensure incidents like this would not happen. The safety plan would require the perpetrator to remain in their class for three minutes before moving to their next class and spend any “unstructured” time, such as break, in designated classrooms as well as stay out of certain hallways during designated times and only use restrooms located in the wing of their current class. 

This safety plan was allegedly broken multiple times by the perpetrator and such incidents were reported to administration. Failure to comply with the safety plan in place directly violates district policy resulting in discipline up to expulsion, something that has not occurred in this case. This safety plan was not updated for the second semester and did not include eight period days.

Following the incident in October, administrators told the student to file a restraining order against the rapist, something they could not do as a minor. The family of the student has made multiple requests to administrators asking that the rapist be removed from school property and transferred to Lakeridge High School or alternative online school. A declaration filed by the student says Assistant Principal of LOHS, Ryan Rosenau, told them that they could leave LOHS, transfer to Lakeridge or attend the district’s alternative school following multiple complaints about violations of the safety plan.

Currently, the student needs to complete her English credit in order to graduate and obtain their diploma, a necessary requirement to keep her admission to Oregon State University. The student stopped attending school in March 2023 citing “the ongoing trauma of having to either face or have the crippling anxiety of facing my rapist on a daily basis at LOHS” according to the lawsuit.

Lake Oswego High School administrators did not have a comment on the incident.