School district, former Hilton Head High teacher sued in alleged student relationship case
A former Hilton Head High School student filed a federal lawsuit alleging his teacher groomed him over the course of several years and the school district failed to stop it.
The complaint, filed on March 31, alleges that Victoria Katherine Montgomery, a former teacher Hilton Head High School, illegally engaged in a sexual relationship with the plaintiff, her former student.
Last May, Montgomery was placed on administrative leave and charged with a felony count of sexual battery with a student who is 18 or older. Allegations were brought forward to law enforcement by the school, according to previous reporting from The Island Packet. The criminal case into Montgomery is pending, according to court records.
She had worked at the school since 2021, according to posts from the school that have since been deleted.
The plaintiff, John Doe, claimed “he became the target” of his former teacher’s “desire to engage in an inappropriate, illicit and illegal sexual relationship with a school student.” Some of their alleged sexual encounters occurred in “a private room” on school grounds, the complaint says.
Rather than intervening, the lawsuit alleges, the Beaufort County School District chose to “empower” Montgomery by allowing her to teach a class where the plaintiff was “the only student in the class.”
The suit alleges that school district officials ignored warnings from “multiple concerned parents” about the relationship between the teacher and student.
It further claims that Montgomery had a known history of inappropriate relationships with students, alleging she had a “child out of wedlock” with one of her former students in Indiana.
The plaintiff has since had to withdraw from his college amid “severe emotional distress,” the lawsuit says. The school district “worsened” the distress by suggesting he “should not feel as though he had been harmed at the hands of his teacher because he is a male rather than a female,” the complaint says.
Attempts to reach representatives from the Beaufort County School District were unsuccessful prior to publication. It is typically the district’s policy to not comment on pending litigation.
