Imagine walking down your school hallway, worried the perpetrator of your sexual assault is there, too. You even see him daily.

That’s the reality in Cherry Creek Schools, students warned on Wednesday. “Kids don’t feel safe at school,” MacKenzie Sleesman, a junior at Cherokee Trail High School, told me pointblank.

“School is a place of learning,” she continued. “But when kids don’t want to come to school because they don’t feel safe, that’s not a good learning environment.”

Sleesman led Cherokee Trail’s student walkout Wednesday morning, joining hundreds of courageous students at her school and hundreds more at other CCSD high schools who protested the district’s handling of an alleged sexual assault on Grandview High School grounds.

Let’s be real: The kids know what’s up at their schools — and they’re crying for help. They’re clamoring for action. Unwilling to wait longer for adults to act, they’re speaking up and speaking out.

As a 2008 Grandview graduate, I’m heartened to see students standing up for themselves and their peers. But I’m also disturbed how students must once again advocate for their own safety.

We saw it last September after Denver Public Schools board member Tay Anderson was censured for “behavior unbecoming of a board member” — including “flirtatious” and “coercive” exchanges with underage students, among other disturbing findings. More than a thousand DPS high schoolers walked out and marched to district headquarters, demanding Anderson’s resignation — not just censure. DPS ignored them. Anderson is now board vice-president.

Now, it’s CCSD’s turn in the hot seat. As FOX31 reported, in November 2021 a 16-year-old Grandview student informed school leaders a 17-year-old student had grabbed her vagina over her pants in class. A student witness told her what the boy did was “fu–ed up.”

The victim explained to investigators the harassment and other inappropriate touching had started earlier, in August 2020. The boy persisted despite her pleas to stop. Following the November 2021 incident, he whispered in her ear, “Your consent means nothing to me.” In January, the suspect was charged with misdemeanor unlawful sexual contact — indicating Arapahoe County prosecutors believe there’s probable cause.

Astonishingly, Grandview has sat on the case. While a Title IX investigation was launched, as of deadline they’d still taken no disciplinary action. The only step was to make the suspect and the victim sign no-contact orders. The district has neglected to act for five months. What gives?

“Normally you are supposed to take all reasonable steps to protect the accuser,” explained Title IX attorney Igor Raykin. This is especially acute when there are criminal charges brought against the accused. “Instead, it seems here that they are prioritizing the interests of the accused over the accuser.”

Raykin says CCSD could have suspended or expelled the student. Alternatively, they could have moved him to another school or into online learning.

Paul Prosise, a Grandview father, told me he learned about the alleged assault on Tuesday, when his child informed him about the walkout. Prosise’s anger understandably grew when CCSD emailed families Wednesday afternoon.

“During advisory today, some students walked out of the building to raise awareness of sexual assault,” the email begins. Talk about a lie by omission. Where was the part about how students protested Grandview’s flagrant failures concerning a specific case of sexual assault on-campus?

“The delay from the district and the board is unacceptable,” Prosise told me. “The safety of children must take a higher priority.”

“The email sent home implied that this was a response to sexual assault awareness month (it was absolutely not),” sophomore Rachel Natale (16) pointedly added. She helped organize and spoke at Grandview’s walkout. “It feels like the district is unwilling to own up to its failings, and it makes a dangerous situation for survivors.”

CCSD seems to have a much bigger problem that transcends this Grandview case. Sleesman detailed on-the-record a similar incident at Cherokee Trail recently, whereby a male student kept touching her and bit her thigh, in class. Strikingly, she says, he told her, “Your consent means nothing to me.”

Just like the Grandview suspect. Sleesman indicated she’d heard another boy say that before, too. Where — or from whom — are these teens getting this idea that “consent means nothing?” Why are they telling this to their victims?

Sleesman and her mother said her assailant signed a no-contact agreement but is already in violation. That seems unsurprising: As Raykin notes, there are no criminal consequences to violating those orders. Instead, they re-victimize victims.

“The school has done nothing,” Sleesman told me. “He’s still in my class. I got put in the corner and he gets to roam the room. I feel like I’m getting the consequences of his actions.”

“My daughter continues to be traumatized every time she goes back to school,” the Grandview victim’s father similarly told Denver7. “She sees him, typically, every day. Cherry Creek has not taken appropriate action.”

Why are schools re-victimizing their own students? What lessons are they teaching boys and girls alike about consent, consequences and sexual assault? Where are the parents?

One thing that makes America great — what has always made our legal system superior to any other — is how we protect our accused. It’s time we protect victims better, too. We can do both. Our schools must do both. The safety and well-being of Colorado’s kids depends on it.

Jimmy Sengenberger is host of “The Jimmy Sengenberger Show” Saturdays from 6-9am on News/Talk 710 KNUS. He also hosts “Jimmy at the Crossroads,” a webshow and podcast in partnership with The Washington Examiner.