9 Investigates

9 Investigates: Under-reported sexual assaults at Central Florida schools

APOPKA, Fla. — It was a secret that rocked a school and is now at the center of a civil lawsuit.

Former Apopka Elementary school teacher Donald Sharp plead guilty in 2016 to attempted lewd and lascivious molestation.

But years before the arrest, questions had been raised about Sharp inappropriately touching student. Sharp stayed on the job, and an Orange County mother told Channel 9's Christopher Heath that allowed the now-convicted sexual predator access to her daughter.

“He was allowed to teach the class,” said the victim’s mother, who asked to remain anonymous. “He had access to her, and access to abuse her.”

Sharp was teaching at Apopka Elementary when students came forward, complaining that he would touch them and caress them during class, even allowing students to sit on his lap.

Sharp was taken off the job with pay for a week, but no charges were filed. At the end of the 2009 school year, Sharp’s contract with the district was not renewed. The victim would not tell her family or police what happened until 2015, a half decade after the incident.

“You hear kids saying they are sitting in his lap, they are not in kindergarten, they are not in first grade, right there is a red flag,” said the victim’s mother.

9 Investigates examined state records for sexual incidents at central Florida schools. Florida requires the reporting of sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexual battery to the Department of Education.

However, there is concern that the records are not complete since sexual incidents tend to be under-reported and some cases, like the Sharp case, don’t get reported to law enforcement for years.

“They’ll (schools) do their own investigation when there is a notice of sexual harassment and they’ll say it’s not founded because there isn’t enough evidence and don’t qualify it so they are not getting it formally reported,” said attorney Jeff Herman, who has handled dozens of civil cases involving sexual contact at schools in Florida.

A spokesperson with the Orange County Public School District declined to comment on this story: “We would have no comment and we have not seen a lawsuit at this point.”