A lawyer for the Upper St. Clair School District disputed allegations in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story yesterday that school officials did not respond appropriately to reports of sexual assault.

The story quoted a 16-year-old girl saying that she had told school officials in late December that a male student in her emotional support classroom had repeatedly shoved her up against a wall and fondled her and that school officials had not reported her complaints to police.

The same male student was charged in February with raping at least three other girls on school grounds.

"We believe that the incident was reported to the police," said Ted Brooks, solicitor for the school district.

The Post-Gazette does not name victims or accusers in sexual assault cases. Mr. Brooks said that since the student in the Post-Gazette story was not identified, the district couldn't directly check its records.

But the district believes that the 16-year-old's complaint matches with a report of "inappropriate touching" from the same time period, though he said that the allegations in yesterday's story seem "much more direct and overt and serious" than what the district has on record.

"The report in the paper was much more involved, compared to merely touching, as it was originally reported, inappropriate touching," Mr. Brooks said.

Nonetheless, he insisted that the school district did contact the police about the matter. Citing a gag order by the judge handling the juvenile court case against the male student, Mr. Brooks declined to specify the exact date but said that it was before February.

Upper St. Clair Police Chief Ron Pardini could not be reached for comment yesterday. Several months ago, he told the Post-Gazette that the police department had not been contacted about any sexual assaults by that student at the high school prior to the rape allegations in February.

Earlier this week, one of the alleged rape victims filed a federal lawsuit against the district and several teachers and administrators.

David Barton, the attorney representing "Jane Doe" in that case, released a statement yesterday saying that the school district had "created a safe haven for continued sexual assaults that ultimately led to the rape of female students inside the high school."

Also yesterday, lawyer Philip Ignelzi said that he was representing two of the other girls who say that they were assaulted by the boy. "We do intend to proceed forward with litigation," he said, though he did not specify a time frame.

The 16-year-old girl quoted in yesterday's Post-Gazette story said that the assaults took place in a secluded hallway next to the emotional support classroom.

The room, she said, was located near the gymnasium and the cafeteria, a several-minute walk away from the "academic wing" of the building where most of the other students attended class.

"It's like they ran out of space and just plopped it there," she said. "It's a weird location ... it was kind of isolated."

A report prepared in November by the Local Task Force on the Right to Education in Allegheny County also questioned the location of the emotional support room. The Local Task Force was established in 1972 as an independent watchdog group for special education.

The report, presented at a March 5 meeting, addressed many aspects of special education at Upper St. Clair and was commissioned before any of the sexual assault allegations. Under its "recommendations" section, the report noted that "placement of the Emotional Support classroom is far away from all other classrooms. The room itself is listed as 'Coaches office.' "

The school district did not respond yesterday to a voice mail message about the location of the room.

Separating students from their peers is at odds with current thinking on special education, said George Zimmerman, chairman of the Department of Instruction and Learning within the University of Pittsburgh's School of Education.

Dr. Zimmerman was speaking generally and was not familiar with the layout of Upper St. Clair High School. If special education students there were located in a wing of the building apart from other classrooms, he would be curious to hear the justification for that decision, he said

"The best-case scenario is to have them fully integrated," he said.