The Dover-Sherborn Public Schools superintendent provided an update on a controversial incident involving the sharing of photos of young girls in the last school year, as parents continued to raise concerns over bullying responses at Tuesday night’s school committee meeting.

“Our independent investigator has completed his report,” said Superintendent Elizabeth McCoy. … “At the end of the review, the independent investigator will determine if there is a violation of Title IX, and if so, what consequences are appropriate.”

The update follows a highly-publicized back and forth between district officials, police and a former school committee member in May. In a widely-circulated email, former member Colleen Burt discussed a police investigation and warned parents of potential AI-generated explicit images created of middle and high school girls.

Responses quickly came from Dover Police and the Dover-Sherborn superintendent, who said the email contained information that was “not factual and could be misleading.”

Dover Police said a September investigation revealed male students had clothed photos of their female classmates, and one boy disseminated both the photos of students and “additional nude pictures of an unknown origin in these messages.” Charges were brought in juvenile court, but McCoy said they were eventually dismissed.

McCoy said Tuesday an independent investigator employed by the district after the incident has completed seven reports for each student involved, some 30 pages long, that have been shared with the families. The reports are also now being reviewed by the Title IX coordinator and “decision maker in the district” she stated.

Results of the review will be shared with the families, who may appeal the decision, McCoy said.

Burt attended Tuesday’s School Committee meeting and read off anonymous statements she said parents had asked her to share. These included accounts from the parent of an alum who was subject to sexual harassment and a second parent of an 8th grade student who was sent pornography over Snapchat in the spring, stating the district denied her Title IX complaint and “appears to have doubled down on their stance of minimizing victims’ experiences.”

A third anonymous statement came from the parent of one of the girls named as a victim in the photo-sharing police investigation in September, Burt read, and shared more allegations regarding the incident.

“To brush this under the rug or turn a blind eye is not the solution,” Burt read. “What message are we sending to these boys, if there’s no discipline for their actions? The message we are sending the victims and other females is that is okay, and boys can get away with it.”

School Committee Chair Angie Johnson raised concerns about sharing details of an investigation involving minor children, citing her history as a prosecutor. McCoy also stated district officials have not seen police reports from the incident.

In the 2023-24 school year, Dover-Sherborn Public Schools reported a zero bullying allegations. The prior year, no information on the district’s bullying allegations was included in state data. The district consists of the local middle and high school and just over 1,000 students.

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McCoy addressed questions of “harassment, bullying and civil rights policies and protocols.”

“We’ve updated our reporting mechanisms for both our own data as well as the state,” said McCoy, following an overview of reviews and planned overhauls. “And I feel like we’ve made a lot of progress and will continue to do so, knowing that we owe it to our students and our families.”