St. Paul’s School has reached out to past students of its summer intensive studies program following the arrest of a former teacher who was terminated in 2008 for inappropriate behavior with a young female.
Former humanities teacher David Pook worked in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2006 for the Advanced Studies Program, which accepts New Hampshire’s highest-achieving high school students and offers them the chance to spend part of their summer living and studying at St. Paul’s. School leaders recently wrote to attendees of those years’ programs, asking them to report any incidents of inappropriate behavior by Pook.
Pook, 47, of Warner was arrested by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office in late February as part of an ongoing investigation into the Concord prep school’s handling of sexual misconduct and assault allegations over several decades. He faces two counts each of witness tampering and conspiracy to commit perjury for allegedly conspiring to hide his sexual relationship with a former student.
Pook taught at St. Paul’s from 2000 to 2008 before he left under what authorities said were “questionable circumstances.” While St. Paul’s maintains Pook was let go following “a boundary violation with a student,” investigators say Pook and the young female had a sexual relationship that began years ago and continues today.
In a letter Thursday to the St. Paul’s community, Archibald Cox, president of the school’s Board of Trustees, calls Pook’s departure from St. Paul’s “overdue and badly handled.” He said the situation was made worse when St. Paul’s Rector Bill Matthews gave Pook a “favorable recommendation” to Derryfield School, a private day school in Manchester.
Pook was hired as a teacher at Derryfield in 2009 and worked there until his recent indictment by the attorney general’s office. He is scheduled to face a judge next week.
Cox and current Rector Michael Hirschfeld said in separate letters to the St. Paul’s community that they have since apologized to Derryfield for the failure of past leaders.
The attorney general’s criminal investigation into St. Paul’s began in July 2017. Attorney General Gordon MacDonald said previously that the office will initially focus on whether the school endangered the welfare of children or broke a law that prohibits the obstruction of criminal investigations. Pook is the first person to face charges since the investigation began.
In launching the criminal probe, the attorney general’s office cited two reports released by St. Paul’s in 2017 on faculty abuse of students spanning decades. Top prosecutors also said they would be looking into more recent reports, including sexual conquest games such as the “Senior Salute.” The game took center stage at the 2015 sexual assault trial of St. Paul’s graduate Owen Labrie, who was convicted of using the internet to lure a 15-year-old freshman for sex.
Chessy Prout, the sexual assault survivor in that high-profile case, recently published a memoir, I Have the Right To: A High School Survivor’s Story of Sexual Assault, Justice, and Hope, detailing her time at St. Paul’s and her advocacy work that followed.
Cox addressed Prout’s memoir in his latest letter, saying, “She has bravely stepped forward as a survivor, trailblazing an issue important not just to schools, but to the entire country.”
He continues, “While we take issue with some of what she says about the culture of the school, what is said and has been said over the years, whether by Chessy or by others, has not and cannot simply be swept under the rug or ignored.”
(Alyssa Dandrea can be reached at 369-3319, adandrea@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @_ADandrea.)