When school starts in a few weeks, Walker Middle School administrators will limit students' access to locker rooms without a teacher or administrator present to monitor them.
The policy, set by the school's new principal, Joseph Brown, was a response to last spring's sexual assault of a 13-year-old flag football player by four older students. Authorities say the four teens bullied the boy for weeks before sexually assaulting him with a broomstick and hockey stick in a locker room at the Odessa school. Lee Louis Myers, 14, Raymond A. Price-Murray, 14, Randall John Moye, 14, and Diemante Roberts, 15, have been charged as adults. Each faces four counts of sexual battery and has pleaded not guilty.
When students aren't using the locker rooms, they'll be locked, said Steve Hegarty, the school district's spokesman.
"The expectation is that it will be handled as the classroom would," Hegarty said. Classroom teachers must find someone to cover for them should they need to leave class while students are present, Hegarty said.
The school district's basic policy requires students to be supervised while at school. Any refinements of that policy are up to individual principals, Hegarty said.
Brown's locker room policy is part of an effort the principal is making to curb bullying at his school.
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