Given the seriousness of the claim but the casual nature with which they’re treating the punishment at this point, I’d say that things are still very much up in the air, and if the school had absolute facts at its disposal, the suspension situation would be very different.

Athena: If they stay quiet, they get the wrath of concerned parents. If they talk, they open themselves up to criminal charges and lawsuits. I’ll take angry parents over jail time or lawsuits any day.

I have to agree. As shitty as it may seem to the parents, the school has to protect itself as well as the students within it. I have no doubt that if they thought that any of the students involved were a threat to the rest of the student body, they would no longer be at the school. Which they are not. Once all the details come out, I am sure it will make a lot more sense.

Also, trying to keep an incident from being publicized is different from sweeping it under the rug. It’s really in the best interest of the victim.

I mean, it very well may have been exactly that, but as you stated – without the details, all you can do is speculate.

Morbid: How are they blaming the girl? Like she initiated it? Not that it couldn’t happen, just curious if that is what is being said.

That some how, because Dallas reporters suck at reporting stuff, it could all be a misunderstanding and that she initiated it and that because they got caught or whatever, she claimed it was an attempted sexual assault….no one really knows who’s who from what I can tell, but still, those comments irk me because the people who are commenting don’t even know the whole story. But maybe that’s just me. Slowly but surely, more information is being leaked. And it seems more and more that she was assaulted and not “claiming” attempted sexual assault as some seems to think.

students were unsupervised:

The Mesquite ISD is making changes after the attempted sexual assault of a student at a school, but the district is still refusing to answer several questions about the incident.  And we’ve learned that the children were unsupervised in the building at the time.

As CBS 11 News first reported Tuesday night at 10, four middle school boys are accused of trying to sexually assault a 12-year-old girl in a bathroom at Berry Middle School on April 6.

The alleged attack happened after school hours.

None of the children is being identified because of their ages.

The district suspended the four boys, who remain out of school pending the outcome of the case.  Two other boys were also disciplined for what the district says were lesser roles, but it won’t say what their roles were.  Those two boys are now back at school.

Today, Mesquite ISD spokeswoman Laura Jobe told CBS 11 News when the alleged attack happened, the students were in a school building waiting for their parents to pick them up after tutoring sessions.  No school personnel were in the hallways at the time, Jobe said.

Jobe also said district officials notified police when they learned of the incident, which she says was the next day.

Jobe says the school has surveillance cameras, and the district has given the video to police.  She would not say whether the video shows the alleged attack.

District officials did not notify parents about the alleged incident until they sent home a letter on April 15.  The letter gives no details, only calling it a “serious and sensitive matter.”

When asked to explain the delay in notifying parents, Jobe says district officials wanted to confirm the facts.

Jobe also refused to discuss whether there have been any previous disciplinary actions against the boys in question.

The school made supervisory changes after the alleged incident, Jobe says.  Any students who are there for tutoring or detention will be escorted from the building by a teacher, she said.  And teachers and other staff members will sweep the building at about 3:45 each afternoon to make sure no students are in the building and that all doors are locked.