The Hamilton County school board is again drawing the ire of state Sen. Todd Gardenhire for what he calls the “continual cover-up” of information regarding the 2015 Ooltewah High School rape case.
A $750,000 settlement with one of four victims in the case was revealed in May, but the amount of a second settlement has not been disclosed.
“I think the public has the right to know what it costs the taxpayers, what a mistake that the department of education made has cost the taxpayers,” he said. “How much did their negligence cost taxpayers?”
Details about the $750,000 settlement with victim “John Doe” were emailed to school board members by school board attorney Scott Bennett in May. Doe was one of the four then-minors who said older Ooltewah High School classmates attacked them with pool cues during a December 2015 trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, for a basketball tournament. He and another victim, “Richard Roe,” filed civil lawsuits against the district in Chattanooga’s U.S. District Court in 2016, and both settled before trial.
But their settlements were supposedly sealed, leaving school board members and the public in the dark about the actual amount.