PAXTON — A second lawsuit has been filed in Ford County Circuit Court alleging the repeated inappropriate touching of students by longtime Paxton-Buckley-Loda teacher and former coach Rob Pacey — and the neglect of administrators to properly address students’ claims of abuse.
The civil complaint was filed Monday by Chicago civil rights attorney Bhavani Raveendran on behalf of “Jane Doe D,” a onetime PBL student now living in Champaign County. Like the first lawsuit filed June 6, also by Raveendran, it names five defendants: Pacey, the Paxton-Buckley-Loda school district, former Superintendents Travis Duley and Cliff McClure, and PBL Junior High School Principal Josh Didier.
The latest lawsuit — seeking more than $50,000 for each of five counts — alleges that Pacey “inappropriately touched and sexually battered” the plaintiff.
It details an alleged incident from November 2013, when she was 11 years old and in sixth grade at PBL Junior High School, part of Pacey’s history/civics class.
As she approached the front of the classroom to turn in a written assignment, she alleged that Pacey stepped behind her and slid his hand “along her lower back, then downward until he made contact with her tailbone, with his hand resting on her buttocks,” where it “lingered” for “5-6 seconds,” the lawsuit said. She said she “stood up straight in surprise and froze in shock.”
The alleged contact was witnessed by both a fellow student and a teacher’s aide, who later reported the conduct to Didier and advised the plaintiff to report it, too, the lawsuit said. The plaintiff reported the incident on Nov. 25, 2013, to Didier, who later met with her and her mother, offering to move her out of Pacey’s classroom and to speak with Pacey about it.
“Mr. Didier did not offer to complete an investigation, initiate the Title IX process, or call (the Illinois Department of Children or Family Services) or the police,” the lawsuit noted, adding that the district’s failure to report the incident to the DCFS was “in direct violation of mandatory reporter obligations.”
The incident also led to no disciplinary action against Pacey.
Also in the suit, the plaintiff claimed that Pacey, both in his history/civics class and in the lunchroom during the 2013-14 school year, would often “stop behind female sixth-grade students, place his hands on their shoulders, and gently and intimately squeeze and massage their shoulders without asking for permission.” The plaintiff claimed that Pacey did that to her “at least 20 times” starting in sixth grade and through eighth grade.
While she became increasingly “uncomfortable and wary” of Pacey, she “did not believe anything would happen if these occurrences were reported,” the lawsuit said, as she had seen Pacey “repeatedly doing the same to other female students, openly in the school, in view of other staff members.”
In an email Monday to the Ford County Chronicle, Raveendran credited the four plaintiffs she is now representing with having the courage to come forward.
“Speaking out about childhood abuse requires an incredible amount of courage,” Raveendran said. “Our clients are shedding light on their experiences to protect as many PBL students as they can. We continue to ask those with information to join in their efforts and reach out to the authorities.”
As of this week, Pacey had not been criminally charged or arrested and remained on paid administrative leave amid ongoing internal and law enforcement investigations. Pacey — a STEM and technology teacher at Clara Peterson Elementary School and former head PBL Junior High School cross-country and girls’ track coach — has denied any wrongdoing.
“It remains unclear what action the district will take in light of the continuing number of reports,” Raveendran said in her email Monday.
The school board is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 9, in the board room in the administrative office in Paxton. Among notable items on the agenda is a discussion on an Illinois Association of School Administrators executive search. The school district has been without a superintendent since June 30, when Duley’s resignation went into effect. Assistant Superintendent Tara Tighe has not responded to repeated requests for comment on the district’s plan to fill the position.
Judge Rebecca Foley of McLean County is expected to preside over both lawsuits filed against PBL, although she had been reassigned only the first one as of Monday. Raveendran said she has filed a motion to consolidate the two civil cases into one.
During a Zoom hearing Monday afternoon, Foley granted Raveendran’s motion for the continued use of fictitious names for each of the first lawsuit’s three plaintiffs — Jane Doe A, B and C. Raveendran cited case law that allows the use of pseudonyms in open court proceedings when the need to protect the privacy of children, rape victims or “other particularly vulnerable parties or witnesses” outweighs the public’s interest in knowing their identities. Attorneys for the defendants had no objection.
Foley also set an Aug. 29 deadline for the defendants’ attorneys — Emily Schnidt representing Pacey and Michael Bersani representing the other four — to file responsive pleadings, which will be considered along with all other unresolved motions during a status hearing at 10 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 11, via Zoom.
Both lawsuits note that complaints against Pacey started being made not long after Pacey was hired in 2008 as a junior high school social studies teacher and assistant junior high cross country coach. However, administrators repeatedly dismissed the complaints over the course of more than a decade, ignoring the school district’s own policies by never notifying the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services as required, the lawsuits said.
Not until this past January — when one of the alleged victims revealed her experiences with Pacey to a therapist, who subsequently contacted DCFS — was the agency ever notified, the suits alleged. And even after the district was informed of an ensuing law enforcement investigation, administrators failed to immediately discipline Pacey, who was not suspended until months later, the suits alleged.