Years After Suspension, Student Who Complained About Arrested Teacher Is Awarded Settlement
CONCORD (CBS) - Ana Goble was in seventh grade at Rundlett Middle School in Concord, New Hampshire when she says bizarre behavior by then special education teacher Howie Leung made her uncomfortable.
"He would invite this special group of girls to lunches and field trips and he would kind of exclude other students and none of my other teachers at Rundlett would do that," Goble said. "The way he acted around students and excluded other students it just made me sick to my stomach."
It was 2014 and Goble said she spoke with her parents about reporting Leung's behavior to the school's principal. Goble's mother, Kate Frey, says she never got the chance.
"The next day we were called into the principal's office and my husband and I were told Ana was spreading malicious and slanderous gossip and that she would be suspended for three days," Frey said.
Then, in April 2019, Leung was arraigned in a Newton, Massachusetts courtroom on charges he repeatedly sexually assaulted a teenage girl. Prosecutors say the assaults started in 2015 when the girl was a student at Rundlett in Concord and continued through her freshman year at Concord High School. Prosecutors say Leung also assaulted her while she was his assistant at a summer camp at the Fessenden School in Newton.
"I couldn't believe it. You know, I felt this kind of relief knowing that I wasn't as crazy as he made me out to be or the administration made me out to be. I felt vindicated," Goble said when she heard the news.
Frey says the family sought legal advice and was awarded a $15,000 settlement from the Concord School District as well as a promise to wipe Goble's suspension from her record.
"We had to make this right for Ana," Frey said.
The Concord School Board released a letter to all parents last week saying it is shocked and horrified at the events surrounding Leung. The Board is seeking an independent investigation and reviewing all policies and procedures related to student safety.
