It's official. Eight months after the pool-cue rape of an Ooltewah High School freshman and basketball player, the victim's attorneys have filed a 23-page federal lawsuit against the Hamilton County Board of Education and former Ooltewah High School employees.
The suit states district administrators, teachers, coaches and volunteers knew a culture of abuse had been taking place for years, "and their failure to remediate this rampant abuse resulted in escalation of male student athletes' harassment, hazing and assaults of teammates."
It's too bad that we taxpayers can't or won't file a similar lawsuit claiming that penny-wise and pound-foolish elected leaders on both the school board and the Hamilton County Commission failed all of us by not understanding the "basic pay me now or pay me later" premise of building top-notch schools.
When will we and our leaders understand that we could have paid years ago for the best teachers, coaches and school administrators, or we could dime our way by until lawsuits like this one get filed and resolved?
We get what we pay for. Sooner or later.