Springboro Schools speaks out after former PE teacher indicted on sex crimes

SPRINGBORO — Springboro Community City Schools spoke for the first time since a former teacher was indicted on sex abuse charges.

The Warren County Prosecutor’s Office announced Monday that John Austin Hopkins was indicted on 36 counts of gross sexual imposition.

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Cameras inside the Clearcreek Elementary School gym reportedly captured the alleged abuse.

Parents are frustrated that the video wasn’t monitored, but the district said it doesn’t have the staff to make that happen.

Twenty-eight first grade girls are the subject of the 36 indictments against the former physical education teacher.

“It’s shocking; it’s gut-wrenching,” said Scott Marshall, Springboro Schools communications coordination.

The numbers go up from there.

Prosecutors said Hopkins had physical contact with 88 girls.

“It’s just a horrible experience and I really feel for every family involved and affected by that,” Marshall said.

News Center 7 spoke to one of those families a few weeks ago.

The parents said the school didn’t do enough to protect their 7-year-old daughter.

“There needs to be a lot of people that are held accountable for their actions,” the girl’s mother said. “There was no care for any of our kids. Zero. Zilch. Nada. You did not make sure our kids were OK.”

District leaders said they put Hopkins on paid administrative leave as soon as they found out what was going on.

They believe that they were proactive in trying to prevent cases like this from happening,.

“I think we have everything in place,” Marshall said. “You have state standards that have evaluations.”

He said that Hopkins passed all evaluations, including unannounced checks pop ins from administrators.

“If our administrators had seen anything like that, what was seen int he videos, they would have spoken up immediately,” Marshall said.

While there are cameras in the gym, they are not set up to be monitored full time, he said.

“It’s manpower and it’s the amount of hours required to do that.”

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He added that in most of the video in which the alleged abuse was captured the gym door was open.

Hopkins is scheduled to make his first court appearance in the case Thursday.