Sarah's Story

It was no secret that my high school band director played favorites, but initially I was not one of them. 

Then, at the start of my senior year, his treatment of me changed. 

It was my fourth year as a student aide with both directors, but that year specifically my aiding period fell during our Symphonic Band's rehearsal block. This meant I either had to spend the hour in my head director's office or the adjacent Jazz Room.  

He began inviting me in each day to chat about college plans and eventually life in general. In just a month's time, he started texting me outside of school. The "relationship" snowballed quickly, and within a few more weeks he confessed his attraction to me. We agreed we'd "date" once I graduated.  

I hadn't had a boyfriend before, which he was aware of, and I allowed him to "guide" the relationship. Unfortunately, this meant he immediately pushed increasingly intense sexual concepts at me, while my naivety innocently thought this was normal for "adults". I thought I was in love, and trusted him so blindly up to this point that I assumed he wouldn't do me wrong.  

He was smart about his abuse, and waited until my 18th birthday to request sexually explicit images. By this point he ignored his own self-imposed rule for waiting until my graduation. With just weeks out from the big day, he made physical contact for the first time by fondling me in our music library.  

I assumed that ten months of waiting (and risking his job) meant something, but almost immediately after graduation he was hard to contact. Our daily texts turned into radio silence, as I heard rumors from other students that I wasn't the only one he had pursued. I didn't want to believe them, and when he finally made contact again he told me all the stories I'd heard in his absence were lies. He was, supposedly, just "busy" writing the marching band show for that fall. Right before I left for college, he invited me over to his apartment where we were intimate for the first time.  

Over the next two years he became increasingly sexually and emotionally violent with me. He began to gaslight the idea of us dating, and pressured me into just maintaining the physical relationship with him. He convinced me to cheat on my college boyfriends, noting they wouldn't be "the one". I hoped that meant he was serious about me, and I just had to prove my loyalty to him to gain his trust back.  

As conditions continued to deteriorate, I eventually justified staying with him to save others from the same fate. I knew I was already a lost cause while trapped with him, and I couldn't mentally handle the idea that someone else could be subjected to the same abuse if I left. He was also my boss at this point, as I had joined my high school's marching band staff.  

In November of 2014, he decided to call it quits, noting he didn't like that "I was clearly in love with him". When I asked why he choose me if he felt nothing towards me, he said it was because "he knew I wouldn't tell on him". I made him promise me he'd never do "this" again, and warned him that if I so much as heard a whisper of another student, I'd report him immediately.  

I was unfortunately pursuing a degree in instrumental Music Education, so that kept us professionally connected well after this "breakup", for lack of a better term. I hoped that my presence within my alma mater's increasingly successful marching program would be enough to keep him from pursuing another student, but by the fall of 2015 I knew my time was up. I was preparing for student teaching, and frankly, I couldn't stand being around him anymore. It was terrifying realizing his teacher persona, the one I had thought I was in love with, was a total facade.  

Just two weeks after leaving, I logged onto twitter, only to see a mutual friend had liked a tweet from a current student in the band. It was screenshots of texts between her and my band director, with the same emojis and jokes he had initially used with me. This girl was only 16 at the time.  

I had a full breakdown, realizing I would have to report him, because he immediately broke our promise. I began collecting evidence over the next few months, until I felt like I had a strong packet. I first went to the police, but in my home state the age of consent didn't include a position of power clause. All those years of him reinforcing my consent with each encounter now made sense, on paper I couldn't file my case as rape. 

Because he had waited until I was 18, we couldn't charge him with CSAM. The police ensured the school district had to to do something, because in their words he was "clearly lying through his teeth".  

The second I walked into the district meeting I knew things were off. The HR representative tried to "girl talk" with me, asking "What was it like dating him"? I corrected her, stating it was abuse and he was the one who refused dating, she just waved me off. When discussing the more volatile sexual acts, she interrupted, noting anything immediately after my graduation wasn't under their purview. I knew the state certification standards, and even when I referenced them she just shrugged and smiled at me. It was clear to me after that meeting they had no intention of punishing him, when the band was performing so well on a national level. Additionally, the HR Rep and Superintendent both had children in the program at that time.  

I had to take my case to the state's department of education. They were flabbergasted the district had done nothing, and were even more shocked when the district fought back against them for investigating. By some ray of luck, his teaching license was up for renewal, and the state put a hold on it which forced him out of the school in the middle of band camp. That same district hr rep who interviewed me called my lawyer and demanded she drop my case, noting "Think of all the students you are hurting by taking away their band director!"  

He never went back after that, we had a literal box of evidence on him. Hundreds of pages of text message timestamps from when I was a minor, an hour+ phone recording of he and I fighting about the 16 year old girl, and a multitude of testimonies from witnesses/physical gifts he gave me. It was undeniable, and no amount of discovery delays would dismiss the inevitable. He finally surrendered his teaching license, because he wouldn't have to confirm or deny the allegations against him.  

He now owns his own marching band design company, and uses an alias, which is really distressing. The music community has had to do it's own policing, but it isn't perfect, and plenty of programs will sacrifice the safety of their students for success. This is why we need nationwide legislation mandating not only criminal background checks, but also misconduct and disciplinary action records for all school staff. We need a database to catalogue abusers, to ensure they cannot jump state lines and reoffend. 

And we must believe survivors when they share their stories.