Stonington — The female president of the Stonington High School Student Council joined a recent graduate, a former school board member and parents Thursday night in calling on the school board to launch an independent investigation into how school officials handled the years of sexual harassment allegations against former high school teacher Timothy Chokas.

“As a student, I strongly endorse a private investigation. There’s a lot to be uncovered,” said Alexandra Kapell, whose serves as the student representative to the school board. “The opinions of the students need to be heard.”

Resident Tracy Swain added that she has talked to 14 female former students who have told her about their interactions with Chokas, who has been accused of inappropriately touching and making comments to numerous female students dating back to 2004.

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“Enough is enough. Do an investigation, protect these girls,” she told the board at its meeting. “Who is protecting these kids? The Board of Education is supposed to protect these kids. The (teachers) union is supposed to protect employees. Stop protecting the employees and do an investigation.”

Martin Vernet, a 2019 Stonington High graduate, added, “What matters is that the school was aware of Chokas’ behavior towards girls for more than a decade. Those in power tasked with protecting their students failed to do just that, and should be held responsible for their allowance and acceptance of such behavior over the course of 15 years.”

For the fourth board meeting since last summer, former school board member Faith Leitner urged the board to conduct an independent investigation into what occurred and why Chokas remained a teacher until he resigned last January after another female student complained about his actions.

“The administration can’t even say how horrible this is,” she told the board. “As a parent you teach your children that if you mess up, you do something wrong, you try not to do it again and say you're sorry,” she said, adding that she was not sure if the school system’s attorney was preventing the board from talking about the matter.

“But not talking is getting you nowhere,” she said. “I don’t think this subject will go away."

She also thanked board members Alisa Morrison, Jack Morehouse and Heidi Simmons for calling for an independent investigation into how the allegations against Chokas were handled. But that effort has been blocked by board Chairwoman Alexa Garvey, and members Candace Anderson, Farouk Rajab and Craig Esposito, who have said they prefer to wait until state Child Advocate Sarah Eagan completes her review of the school system’s policies and procedures regarding sexual harassment.

That review began last June after The Day published the first of a number of stories that revealed the allegations against Chokas. Eagan’s report, which is not yet complete, is not expected to include interviews with teachers and past students who complained about Chokas to determine whether their complaints were addressed.

Garvey, Anderson, Rajab and Esposito did not respond Thursday night to the comments made by the speakers calling for an independent probe, which would include such interviews.

Leitner said if the board had acted promptly, the independent investigation would have been complete.

Vernet, who told the board that his parents are both veteran teachers in the Groton school system, said that as a student he had heard rumors about Chokas’ behavior toward girls.

“It was an open secret, with many students aware of how he acted. Despite most students knowing something was up with Chokas, it was never considered a genuine problem. I cannot speak as to why others felt this way, but part of me felt like if these allegations were true, they would have been reported and Chokas would no longer be employed,” Vernet told the board.

He said that it was now surprising to him to hear how many girls had reported problems with Chokas. He said that when he brought up the issue with some female classmates, he found out that there were other girls who had similar interactions with Chokas but never reported them.

“They told me that girls did not feel comfortable talking about what had happened when it came to sexual misconduct in general because they felt a lack of support from the male student body," he said. "Instead of receiving support, they felt like they would be blamed for what had happened to them. They believed if they were to come forward with their experiences, they would be dismissed and not taken seriously by the boys at school. They felt defeated, and that there was no use in bringing what happened to light. It all contributed to an environment that made girls feel incredibly uncomfortable in coming out with their own stories of sexual misconduct, and allowed for this cycle to continue.”

Vernet said, “The way the Chokas allegations have been handled and treated by the Stonington school system is an embodiment of the lack of support given to women when it comes to inappropriate sexual behavior.”

He said that at the end of the day, school officials "did not support those young women who made a stand against Chokas over the last decade and a half. The administration, by allowing this to continue for as long as it did, has sent a message to its students that these actions are OK."

He asked the board to support an independent investigation so “these girls, who were let down by the administration, by their peers, and by myself, are not let down again.”

Stonington teachers have been silent on the issue involving Chokas and how it was handled. Teachers’ union President Michael Freeman again this week did not respond to questions about whether his members were aware of or ever filed complaints about Chokas with school administrators, the state Department of Children and Families or police.

Residents Jessica Morrissey and Elizabeth Johnstone also called on the board to support an independent investigation.

“We need closure. We need to heal,” Johnstone told the board. “I’ve talked to so many people, some who could not be here tonight, who are so upset about this issue.”

Board member Morehouse recounted a well-publicized December incident in Georgia in which a man running in a road race was charged with sexual battery after he was seen slapping the buttocks of a female television reporter as she did a live report on the race.

“She was humiliated,” Morehouse said, pointing out the reporter was 25 or 30 years old — the woman was actually 23 — and not a high school student.

“This is serious stuff,” said Morehouse, who added that while his fellow board members blocking the probe are doing what they think is best, “so am I.”

“There’s a big disconnect between what the administration is reporting to us and what we read in the paper,” he said, referring to The Day’s reporting on the issue. “That’s why we need an independent investigation.”

“If this happened over and over, we need to know,” he said, adding the board has to honor the female students who were subject to Chokas’ alleged actions.

“Honoring them is to do an investigation that explicitly documents what happened,” he said. "We may find out doing an investigation that the administration did exactly what it was supposed to do and that would be great."

Garvey announced that at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 27, at the former Pawcatuck Middle School, the board will hold a public workshop to begin discussing issues such as how to improve the complaint reporting process and the interview process for those filing a complaint, how to make students making complaints feel comfortable, how to better involve parents in the complaint process and forming community partnerships to address the issue. She urged past and former students, parents, teachers and residents to attend.

Also at Thursday’s meeting, board member Anderson read a statement in which she defended herself against criticism she's heard that she should have reported complaints about Chokas to DCF because she was a school board member or worked in another school system, which would have made her a mandated reporter of sexual abuse of children.

Anderson said that in 2016 she overheard a conversation in her car among her daughter and her friends complaining about Chokas. She said that, in her role as a parent, she passed those concerns on to school officials. She said that it came six months before she was appointed to the board and two years before she began in her current position in a school system she did not identify. She said she considered making a DCF report at the time but did not feel it was warranted. In addition, she pointed out school board members are not mandated reporters.

She said she has made "many missteps" in learning what her role as a school board member is, "but failing to report things or holding people accountable for intentionally irresponsible behavior is not one of them."

"I stand with Stonington students and with Stonington schools," she said.

Anderson also told the few students at the meeting to look at the caliber and dedication of the school system's administrative team, which she said has never been higher in the history of the school system, starting with high school Principal Mark Friese and Superintendent Van Riley.   

She refused to answer questions about her statement after Thursday’s meeting.

Numerous girls have told The Day they were repeatedly touched by Chokas and saw him touching others and making inappropriate comments to them dating back to 2004. After a January 2019 incident in which a student reported to a police officer in the building that Chokas was touching a female classmate and making inappropriate comments, Chokas was allowed to resign with his full salary of $81,396 and benefits through the end of the school year.

The school system also agreed not to fire Chokas or disclose any information concerning his employment to anyone, except as required by law.

Friese and Van Riley have testified under oath they did not consider various reports about inappropriate touching and comments lodged against Chokas, by students referred to in various school documents and emails in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 and from the girls themselves, as complaints. Instead, they considered them “reports,” “interactions with people” and “concerns” expressed by students and others.

Their categorizations meant that these complaints were not placed in Chokas’ personnel file and not released to The Day when the newspaper requested them last year.

j.wojtas@theday.com