THE ISSUE: As LNP | LancasterOnline’s John Walk reported last Sunday, a Manheim Township boys lacrosse player last April “pinned down a teammate on a hotel room bed while another teammate, naked from the waist down, repeatedly thrust his genitals at the victim’s face, according to a confidential report from a student and a school investigation of the incident, confirmed by the victim’s parents. Another teammate recorded video of the incident and sent it to the player who had exposed himself, who then posted the video more broadly to a group chat. ... No one in the school district’s administration — not the superintendent, not the athletic director, not the lacrosse coach, not the human resources director or anyone else who learned of the incident — notified state authorities, despite their status as ‘mandatory reporters,’ legally required to report any suspected abuse.”
We’re going to begin with the words we hope Manheim Township school officials offered the victim in this terrible case: We’re sorry.
We’re sorry you were subjected to this degrading abuse. The degradation, though, belongs not to you, but to the so-called teammates who allegedly did this to you.
We’re also sorry that institutions such as Manheim Township School District — but not only that institution — keep failing in their responses to incidents such as this. That’s their shame, not yours.
How many more times will we have to write about institutions that seek to protect their reputations instead of the well-being of young victims of abuse? Because that seems to be what happened here.
That’s what happened at Lancaster Country Day School, too, when two students allegedly used artificial intelligence to create deepfake nude images of female students, and officials at that school failed to promptly notify ChildLine, the state’s hotline for reporting suspected child abuse. All school employees are required by law to report suspected abuse. But Country Day officials put off meeting their legal responsibility for months, and only made a ChildLine report after a criminal investigation had begun.
Now, in a demonstration of unrepentant gall, Country Day’s 2025-26 enrollment contract states that students can be dismissed without being refunded any of the $31,700 annual tuition they have paid if they or a family member speak ill of, or pursue litigation against, the school. According to LNP | LancasterOnline’s Ashley Stalnecker, the change to the contract “comes mere months after a group of parents initiated litigation” against Country Day over its handling of the deepfake images of 59 girls and one adult.
Jeffrey Dodge, an assistant law professor at Penn State Dickinson Law, told LNP | LancasterOnline that he considered many of the enrollment contract terms “cautionary red flags.”
“The clauses in this enrollment agreement intentionally create a troubling deprivation of rights meant to silence parents, students, and their families, even those not a party to the agreement,” Dodge wrote in an email.
It’s appalling.
And so was what happened to a Manheim Township lacrosse player last spring — and his school district’s pathetically inadequate response to it.
Many questions
As LNP | LancasterOnline’s Walk reported, no one was suspended from the Manheim Township lacrosse team, even after the district launched an internal investigation. According to athletic records, both alleged perpetrators continued to play through the 2024 season.
Only after an anonymous tip was made to the Safe2Say Something program (operated by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General) did the district launch an internal investigation into whether the players had violated Title IX, a federal civil rights law that covers sexual misconduct in athletics.
Is anyone at all surprised that the internal investigation found that the players had not violated Title IX, and that administrators closed the case? That outcome was practically written from the onset.
Internal investigations are often worthless in these cases. This is why Pennsylvania enacted tougher mandatory reporting laws after the horrors of Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of children were revealed more than a decade ago.
Acting Superintendent Dale Reimann told LNP | LancasterOnline that the district notified Manheim Township police when the complaint was received, and the district was advised that anyone who wanted to press charges would need to contact police in Stow, Ohio, the location of the hotel. But district officials didn’t contact the Stow police. And Manheim Township police Chief Duane Fisher said his office has no records of a report on the incident.
Additionally, Erik Yabor, media specialist for Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams, said the district attorney’s office “was not made aware of the incident prior” to an email last month from LNP | LancasterOnline's Walk.
Shockingly, Manheim Township’s nine-member school board didn’t learn of the incident until the LNP | LancasterOnline investigation was published last Sunday. At a public meeting Thursday evening, board Vice President Patrick Grenter questioned whether the board ever would have been notified if the article hadn’t been written. “What steps are we taking to make sure that this absolutely cannot happen again?” he asked.
It’s an excellent question. We have others.
— Why didn’t the Manheim Township school administrators report the incident to the Stow police?
— Why didn’t they at least check with ChildLine to get direction on how to handle this incident?
— Why did the alleged perpetrators remain on the playing field?
— What message did that send to the victim and other Manheim Township students?
— And how must it have felt for the victim to be forced to continue to share space on the field, and in the locker room, with the alleged perpetrators?
Boys lacrosse coach Dan Lyons said he was told “not to make any specific changes” to the playing time of the players involved “because you don’t want to get into falsely punishing a student.”
You know what else you don’t want to do? Convey the message that there are no significant consequences for allegedly pinning a teenager to a bed while another teenager thrusts his genitals into the trapped teenager’s face.
Lyons told LNP | LancasterOnline that he didn’t report the matter to ChildLine because he wasn’t involved in the school district’s investigation and had only the anonymous Safe2Say tip to go on.
In an October meeting with departing Manheim Township Superintendent Robin Felty and acting Superintendent Reimann, the victim’s parents said they were told the school district did not report the matter to the state, claiming mandatory reporting is not required if it’s child-to-child, or teen-to-teen, alleged assault or abuse.
This is what Pennsylvania mandatory reporting law states: When the perpetrator and victim are minors, it’s not child abuse unless the perpetrator committed a particular crime, such as rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault or indecent exposure.
Had ChildLine been notified in the timely manner this situation demanded, the trained professionals at Lancaster County Children and Youth Social Service Agency likely would have conducted an expert investigation.
Bravery of students
As Cathleen Palm, founder of The Center for Children’s Justice, wrote in a column for this newspaper, the commonwealth’s mandatory reporting rules need to be clarified, especially regarding youth-on-youth abuse. But that doesn’t excuse Manheim Township’s administrators and lacrosse coach, who failed in their moral, if not legal, obligation to the victim.
All we’ve read are their excuses for why they didn’t report this incident to the state. We want adults charged with the care of children to err on the side of caution every time, to look for reasons why they should report a disturbing incident, not for escape routes and technicalities that relieve them of the necessity of reporting.
It was a student — a player on the lacrosse team who was not in the hotel room during the incident — who had the courage and decency to report it to the Safe2Say Something tip program, which is staffed by mandated reporters. Similarly, it was a student at Country Day who apparently reported the deepfakes to Safe2Say. We applaud those students. We wish the adults around them had exhibited similar bravery and concern for the victims.
Internal investigations and contracts discouraging parents and students from lodging complaints only serve to create the impression that schools care more about protecting themselves than their students. We’re sorry that victims of alleged abuse were poorly served by the educators at Lancaster Country Day and Manheim Township.
Those officials should be sorry, too.
GET HELP
YWCA Lancaster runs a 24-hour sexual assault hotline that connects callers to free, confidential counseling and therapy services for community members impacted by sexual abuse, harassment or assault: 717-392-7273.
Report suspected child abuse to ChildLine: 1-800-932-0313.
Report school threats: safe2saypa.org; 844-SAF2SAY (844-723-2729).
