Police investigate alleged sexual assault involving nonverbal student at West Nyack school
Mother of 14-year-old girl says she’s demanding answers weeks after alleged incident involving teacher’s aide in Rockland County.
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Police are investigating sexual assault allegations involving a teacher’s aide and a 14-year-old nonverbal student at the Jesse Kaplan School in West Nyack.
The girl’s mother, who lives in Pine Bush, spoke exclusively with News 12 weeks after the alleged incident, saying she’s frustrated no arrests have been made.
According to a heavily redacted Clarkstown police incident report obtained by the mother and provided to News 12, a school staff member told police they saw a 46-year-old teacher’s aide with his hand down the front of the girl’s pants inside a classroom on May 6.
The girl attends the Rockland BOCES school through an out-of-district placement from Orange County and has been a student there since 2022, according to her mother.
“I was told a male teacher’s assistant sexually assaulted my daughter,” the mother says. “My heart just sank to hear something like that.”
The incident report states the mother was notified the same day and that the girl was taken to Westchester Medical Center for what police described as a pediatric sexual assault evaluation. The mother says her daughter later underwent additional medical treatment and testing.
“It makes me so sick to my stomach,” she said. “To even think that a man could have his hands on my child like that.”
The mother says her daughter is severely autistic and nonverbal and cannot explain what happened herself.
“Being that my daughter is nonverbal, they are usually targets for people like this,” she said. “But there has to be better protections put in place in schools so things like this do not happen.”
She says her daughter has since been pulled from school and is now being homeschooled while the family works through therapy and trauma counseling. Now, the mother wants the aide to be held accountable and is calling for cameras inside classrooms serving nonverbal students.
“Without cameras, there are no other protections besides someone else speaking up, like what this teacher did.”
The Rockland County District Attorney’s Office confirmed the investigation remains active but says no charges have been filed at this time.
In a statement to News 12, Rockland BOCES wrote that it is aware of the allegations and confirmed the employee has been placed on leave and is not permitted on school property while the investigation continues.
“Rockland BOCES is cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities and is also conducting its own investigation into the allegations,” the statement read.
News 12 also reached out to Clarkstown police but has not yet heard back.
The investigation follows the 2025 acquittal of another former Jesse Kaplan staff member who was accused in a separate case of dunking two disabled students underwater during a pool activity.
