New London — An investigation into sexual misconduct of two New London school employees by the state Office of the Child Advocate has revealed historic lapses in the school district’s hiring practices and failures to meet mandated reporting and Title IX requirements.

The new report stems from an investigation that began in 2019, a dark period for the school district when police arrested Corriche Gaskin, a climate control specialist working with troubled youth, on charges he sexually assaulted two girls between the ages of 14 and 15 while working at the district’s middle school.

The assaults took place between 2016 and 2017. The episode and multiple investigations by the district and state Department of Children and Families led to suspensions, resignations and firings under Superintendent Cynthia Ritchie, who was hired in 2018.

Along with Gaskin, the report focuses on details surrounding the hiring and eventual firing of a former paraprofessional and track coach at the school who was accused of having inappropriate relationships with students and allegedly had sex with a 16-year-old student. That former employee was never prosecuted.

State Child Advocate Sarah Eagan makes a host of recommendations in the 22-page report, many that focus on the protection of vulnerable children from sexual misconduct of adults. Other recommendations involve the need for more rigorous hiring procedures for adults who interact with children. The full report and response from the district are available here.

New London Board of Education President Elaine Maynard Adams was not on the board at the time news broke of the alleged sexual assaults in 2019. A former school board member, Maynard Adams said the incident motivated her to “come out of retirement and get involved again.”

“I was so distraught," she said. "The whole thing from start to finish was awful.”

Maynard Adams and Ritchie both said the district immediately addressed the shortcomings outlined in the report, which was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“From the perspective of the Board of Education, the administration has taken steps to clean up records, to ensure all training is up to date,” Maynard Adams said. “We are confident we have addressed all the deficiencies. From a global perspective, every single person involved in that mess, the perpetrators and their enablers is long gone. That needed to happen.”

A 2014 study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, cited in Eagan’s report, shows that nearly 9.6% of students are victims of sexual abuse by school personnel — teachers, principals, coaches and school bus drivers — at some point during their school career. The U.S. Department of Education defines sexual misconduct as sexual activity that can be physical or not and range from inappropriate verbal conduct, such as sexual comments or teasing, to fondling and kissing.

Connecticut does not collect or publish state-specific data on sexual abuse in schools.

“The prevalence is concerning,” Eagan said in an interview with The Day. “These are just the ones people find out about. It’s really important to understand that some kids are at much higher risk. The Gaskin crimes highlight that.”

“This happens more than you think it does. Because we think of sexual abuse as deviant behavior, we think it’s a rare occurrence," she said. "It isn’t rare. We need to confront that.”

While he was working at the middle school in 2016 and 2017, the report reveals that Gaskin was able to spend time alone with students “who were purportedly in need of additional help from supportive adults, which gave him unsupervised access to vulnerable children.”

In addition to the sexual assault, Gaskin allegedly had sex with multiple adult employees, recorded the incidents and showed the recordings to others. Others in the district faced criminal charges for not abiding by laws pertaining to mandated reporting.

Eagan released an initial set of recommendations to the New London school district in 2019 that focused on hiring, training and oversight of school employees. Her office has worked collaboratively with the district since that time.

She credits the school district with adopting policies and initiatives that directly address some of the shortcomings.

Eagan’s report is accompanied by a six-page outline of New London school district initiatives and procedures implemented since the issues surfaced. Changes include a restructuring of top leadership positions as well as the human resources department.

The report highlights how Gaskin was hired by the district in 2014 as a paraprofessional and admitted to having a felony criminal record relating to drug possession. He subsequently was promoted, with recommendations from school administrators, to the role of school climate specialist. It was a position Gaskin was not qualified for because he did not have a bachelor’s degree, the report states.

And while the district provided documentation that a criminal background check was performed on Gaskin, there were no records to confirm it had reached out to former employers.

“If at any point during his employment tenure District administrators had contacted Gaskin’s former employers, they may have learned that in 2008 there were allegations that Gaskin was abusing residents at a residential treatment facility for children and being unnecessarily rough with residents and that the residents were afraid of him,” Eagan wrote in her report.

Some of those allegations, which could not be substantiated with DCF, included that he had brought a gun to school, showed the gun and threatened students and residents. Records show that prior to his work in New London schools, Gaskin had worked with the Eastern Community Development Corp. as an assistant to children with disabilities.

The New London school district performed an audit of its human resources department in 2019 and turned up inconsistent record keeping blamed in part on the high turnover of superintendents and human resources directors in the district — seven of each during a 10-year period prior to Ritchie’s hire.

After she was hired in 2018, Ritchie completed restructuring of administrative positions at the schools, including the human resources department. Both the high and middle schools are under new leadership.

Eagan’s report includes Ritchie’s five-page list of initiatives and procedures implemented since 2019.

The district has a new Department of Mental Health Services, a new Department of Climate and Culture, a new Title IX coordinator and revised Title IX procedures. It has new mechanisms for reporting incidents or concerns and created a new paraeducator handbook that is updated annually.

“The district had taken immediate actions as soon as these hidden issues came to light, three years ago,” Ritchie said. “Work has continuously occurred to build and implement strong, districtwide systems and multi-step measures of accountability, which are now in place.”

“NLPS remains committed to the highest levels of professional expectations for all, as the physical and emotional safety remains top priority,” she said.

Gaskin has pleaded no contest to two charges of risk of injury to a minor under a plea agreement with state prosecutors that would see him serve seven years in prison followed by 10 years of probation and 10 years on the state's sexual offender registry.

g.smith@theday.com