MCPS: Damascus Athletic Director, JV Coaching Staff Are Out
Montgomery County Public School Superintendent Jack Smith held a press conference Tuesday, where Smith answered questions about the letter mailed to the Damascus community detailing an update into MCPS’s internal investigation into the alleged locker room rapes.
(Video courtesy of Facebook/Fox 5 DC)
Athletic Director, JV Football Coach Out at Damascus
MCPS is making major staffing changes at Damascus, following an internal investigation into the alleged locker room rapes on Oct. 31, 2018.
Smith said Vincent Colbert — the junior varsity head football coach — has been fired from MCPS and Joe Doody will no longer work as an MCPS athletic director but will remain a teacher within the school system.
“The athletic director will not be teaching at Damascus High School in the future and the JV coach will not be coaching or working for MCPS.”
Earlier this month, the two had been placed on administrative leave as a part of the ongoing investigation.
Last week, Casey Crouse, principal at Damascus resigned, but — Bethesda Beat reported — she will maintain the same salary of $160,763 in her new position as an “administrator on special assignment” in the office of Human Resources and Development.
Smith announced that the varsity football head coach, Eric Wallich, will continue coaching at Damascus.
Superintendent On Why Damascus Staff Didn’t Report Alleged Rapes Immediately
A reporter for The Washington Post asked Smith about text messages between coaches and Damascus school officials that The Post obtained the night of Oct. 31.
“In the [text] messages the head coach told the principal that a boys pants had been pulled down, and another boy poked him with a broomstick […] Why wasn’t that enough to call police?” the reporter asked.
Smith said that there was more context beyond what the text messages had shown; he added that the coaches and staff were responding based on the level of information they had at the time.
“In the context of everything that was said and reported by the people that said it to one another, that [information] did not indicate a sexual assault at that time,” said Smith.
Smith explains in his letter to the Damascus community, that the morning after the incident, Damascus school officials received more information leading them to view what allegedly occurred as sexual assault.
Smith said in the letter, “On the morning of November 1, 2018, as Damascus High School staff worked with the school resource officer, details indicating a potential sexual assault became clearer, and the Special Victims Investigations Division of the Montgomery County Police Department was contacted.”
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