In the wake of community uproar over the Palo Alto school district's handling of recent student sexual-assault cases, school board members are considering hiring a dedicated Title IX compliance officer and a separate investigator to help an organization that has long struggled with its compliance with the federal civil-rights law.

The district also reported during a special board meeting Wednesday that it has seen a spike in reports of Title IX violations this month, likely, staff said, the result of media coverage and public attention to reports of student sexual violence at Palo Alto High School. The district logged 17 complaints of on- and off-campus sexual assault and sexual harassment in the month of May alone, including two reports filed on Wednesday (May 31). The majority of complaints involve Paly students or staff, according to an updated Uniform Complaint Procedure (UCP) log provided by the district.

At a special Wednesday Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Max McGee proposed the district temporarily contract with John DiPaolo, an education attorney who has worked for the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights since 2011, to serve as an interim Title IX coordinator starting next month. DiPaolo currently works as the deputy general counsel for postsecondary education for the Office for Civil Rights, which oversees Title IX compliance for K-12 schools, colleges and universities.

The district's current Title IX coordinator, Chief Student Services Officer Holly Wade, is leaving the district next week.

At a Title IX compliance-officer training last week led by two firms the district has contracted with to help with its Title IX work — Cozen O' Connor and Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo — lawyers told administrators that the district needs a full-time Title IX coordinator, McGee said. (In the past, the district's associate superintendent has also coordinated the district's Title IX efforts.)

Without a dedicated position, there will be "more problems and more things slipping through the cracks," McGee said the attorneys advised.

He suggested contracting with DiPaolo, starting on June 12, until the district can find a permanent hire. An alternative would be to appoint McGee or one of the district's chief academic officers — all three of whom attended last week's Title IX training, along with five Palo Alto High School administrators — as interim compliance officer.

The lawyers also suggested the district look into hiring an external investigator to conduct all Title IX investigations on behalf of the district, McGee said. Historically, a mix of staff and district law firms have conducted these investigations.

Trustee Melissa Baten Caswell said she was concerned about the objectivity of an on-staff investigator who works directly for the district. She requested that staff have a plan to address this and run it by Cozen O' Connor for feedback. She also urged that staff consider all reports holistically — not just those that rise to a level of a formal investigation — to identify and address any ongoing problems or patterns in behavior.

"Do we have some systemic things that we need to address?" she asked. "I think we will miss them if we look at each incident independently."

Board Vice President Ken Dauber said that while having accurate, timely investigations is critical, the responsibility for putting remedies in place to protect student safety and educational access falls on the shoulders of district staff.

"To me it's a stopgap to have these external law firms involved in this because while we get reports that may be quite accurate ... about the event itself but aren't really focused on remedies for students, which is ultimately what were on the hook for," he said.

And while McGee pointed to larger, cultural issues present not only in Palo Alto but in schools and communities across the country — a culture tolerant of rape, a lack of understanding about consent, underage drinking, the need for more training and education — Dauber argued that the district's immediate responsibility is to address a much "simpler" problem: making sure all staff and administrators follow board policies already in place to prevent Title IX violations.

"This isn't a project where we have to come up to speed on Title IX or where staff have to become lawyers and legal experts," he said. "This is really about following policies that we already have."

It is not more training or new positions that the district needs, Paly parent Kathy Jordan told the board, but a "will and commitment to this cause."

"Title IX has been a law since 1972," she said. "This is about student safety and following the law."

On Wednesday, President Terry Godfrey promised greater transparency around the district's ongoing Title IX efforts. The district will provide a weekly update to the public and plans to soon launch a webpage where information about investigations, compliance and district procedures will be posted, she said.

Board leadership will also have a weekly meeting with Cozen O' Connor attorneys, who are currently investigating administrators' response to a recent Paly sexual assault case involving a male athlete. The firm aims to have a summary of its work done by the third week of June, Godfrey said. A final written report will come later. The firm will prepare a report that can be released to the public, Dauber said.

The board has said it plans to use the law firm's report to inform an annual evaluation of McGee in June.

Some trustees voiced concern about this month's sharp increase in incident reports, which Wade attributed to the media attention and students feeling more safe to come forward.

Board member Todd Collins worried about the "potential implication there that that's an unnaturally high number of complaints.

"My concern is that's the natural number of incidents that are happening all the time, and the vast majority of time, they go unreported," he said.

Dauber speculated that the actual number of incidents might be higher, given "filters" like students or staff not recognizing that something that happened is something they should report or not knowing to whom it should be reported.

For the month of May, the UCP log shows complaints regarding multiple off-campus sexual assaults; on-campus sexual harassment; an unknown allegation between student and staff that resulted in "corrective actions" and a site memo issued to staff on May 3; as well as employer sexual harassment, among other incidences. Reports of on- and off-campus sexual assault at Terman Middle School were also "revealed through open Title IX ongoing investigation," the log states.

In addition to the 17 reports filed in May, the district logged 19 UCP reports between August and April from several campuses relating to Title IX and other allegations, such as harassment based on a protected class or disability-based discrimination. There were 24 total complaints in the 2015-16 school year.