A teacher has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 13-year-old student on multiple occasions at a charter school in New Haven, Connecticut.
Detectives started investigating Dominque Maynard, 27, an English Language Arts teacher teacher at Booker T. Washington Academy, on Nov. 11, 2021, after authorities received reports of inappropriate text messages she exchanged with a group of students aged 12 to 13 years old, including the victim according to Hamden police Detective Sean Dolan.
School officials said they first learned about the messages through a parent." A parent did her due diligence and checked her child's phone and saw a communication that was inappropriate and brought it to my attention," said John Taylor, executive director of Booker T. Washington Academy.
Detectives also alleged that Maynard engaged in sexual intercourse with the 13-year-old victim, on more than one occasion, at the school.Although Maynard was not identified at the time, the investigation made the news the following day when the charter school announced it had fired a teacher due to allegations of misconduct.
Taylor said Maynard was immediately suspended, and subsequently fired within 36 hours. He said parents were also notified immediately and both students and teachers were provided with counseling support at that time. "Both internally but also externally, engaging with families to seek support as needed," Taylor said.
Maynard, of New Haven, faces four counts of second-degree sexual assault and four counts of illegal sexual contact, the state judicial database shows. She was held in lieu of $100,000 bail and scheduled to appear in Superior Court in Meriden Friday.
"You never expect something like this to happen in your community. When you sign up to be a school administrator, this isn't what you're signing up for," Taylor said. "We do have policies in place that forbid adults from being alone with students behind closed doors," he said.
The school said it is now working to rebuild trust with its families and is continuing to provide support. "We see our families as families and work really hard to build trust and something like that really does impact that so we're working hard to ensure that our families still face safe," Taylor said.
