PELHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — Indian Springs School has released a letter stating that after an internal investigation, they found sexual abuse of students stemming from at least five educators dating back to 1958.
The school enlisted the help of law firm Jackson Lewis to find evidence by interviewing current and former students, staff and parents.
The abuse includes the educators grooming students, soliciting sex and having sexual relationships with students.
Indian Springs Letter to Families by CBS 42 on Scribd
Three of the educators are now dead and the other two have not been employed by the school in years.
The letter goes on to say that the school has now taken steps to train faculty and staff to respond to the finding from the report.
Steven Sears graduated from Indian Springs School in 1970. When he looks back on his time there, he believes the educators are second to none.
“I thought that when I was there, Indian Springs had the best faculty in the state of Alabama, and I still think that,” said Spears.
But what Sears did not think was that this letter would be sent out by his alma mater identifying three teachers by name. As it so happens, Sears interacted with all three.
“I personally knew all three of those named teachers,” said Sears. “Two of them taught me classes and all three of them were exemplary as far as I could tell back then.”
The letter states that back then, the school did now know about any alleged incidents regarding three of the teachers. But, in the case of the other two, reports were made and the school acted by terminating one faculty member and removing another from on-campus living.
For Sears, he remembers there always being gossip, but as far as he knows, nothing like this ever came through the rumor mill.
“People were a lot more Victorian and more censorious back then so if anything like this was going on, they certainly kept it very very quiet,” said Sears.
No other information has been released. The investigation is still ongoing.