Douglas B. Reeves, a nationally known consultant on curriculum and standards, is defending himself against a charge of inappropriately touching a child.
In a July 12 complaint, Mr. Reeves was charged with one count of indecent assault and battery on a child younger than 14, according to Carrie Kimball Monahan, a spokeswoman for the Essex County district attorney’s office in Massachusetts. She said the complaint was based on a police report from Swampscott, a coastal town 12 miles northeast of Boston.
The documents in the case have been sealed to protect the identity of the child, said Ms. Monahan, who provided basic details from the docket in district court in nearby Lynn, Mass., where the case is being heard.
Mr. Reeves, 58, was arraigned on Aug. 14 in that court and released on his own recognizance, on the condition that he have no contact with the child and a witness and that he enter elementary and middle schools only when accompanied by an adult, Ms. Monahan said. He pleaded not guilty.
A pretrial hearing was held Sept. 24, but continued until Oct. 29.
According to a local edition of the Internet news site Patch.com, the charge stems from a 2006 incident in which Mr. Reeves is alleged to have touched a private area of a 9-year-old girl whose family was staying at his home in Swampscott.
Reached by Education Week last week, Mr. Reeves said he was “horrified” by the accusation.
“It’s not true, and I’m still dumbstruck by the whole thing,” he said. “I hope it gets resolved as quickly as possible.”
Mr. Reeves founded the Englewood, Colo.-based Center for Performance Assessment, which later became the Leadership and Learning Center and was acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It consults with schools and districts nationally on standards, instruction, assessment, and leadership.
Mr. Reeves said that he had not resigned from the center, but his name no longer appears on the list of staff and consultants on its website.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt spokeswoman Bianca Olson said in an email that when the company acquired the Leadership and Learning Center in late 2010, Mr. Reeves became an “outside consultant.” But “given recent legal developments brought to our attention,” she said, “we have suspended our consulting relationship” with him.
The author of numerous books and articles on assessment, instruction, and education leadership, Mr. Reeves is widely recognized for his “90/90/90" theory of school improvement, which identifies the characteristics of high-poverty, high-minority schools in which 90 percent of students perform at high levels.
