A former middle school teacher and softball coach who was arrestedin November for allegedly having sexual contact with a juvenile girl faces new allegations of an inappropriate relationship with an 11-year-old nearly 12 years ago.
After keeping silent for years, now 24-year-old Brynn Sampson is the new victim to speak against Daryl Clark, who taught at Monroe Middle School before being arrested.
"I'm tired of him having the freedom that I didn't have for 12 years. Because that's not fair," says Sampson. "I wanted to come forward and just be like, no more being the victim. I don't want to be that anymore."
Clark taught Sampson math during her seventh grade year at Beveridge Middle School. She says Clark was the fun, cool teacher and was friends with many of the students.
"He was very popular with the kids. Everyone loved him."
She says she started needing extra helping with his class and stayed after school for tutoring. She says at first there were other students in the classroom who also needed tutoring, but down the line, she often found herself being the only one in the classroom with Clark.
"That's when it all started. He started being more direct and more personal. Less students would be coming in those doors after school and we'd be alone and then progression and grooming started," says Sampson.
On another occasion, Sampson says Clark forcefully kissed her in the back of his classroom. She says he also wrote her a note saying he dreamt about them having sex, and told her they could have sex in Iowa when she turned 16 - the age of consent in Iowa.
"I didn't know what to do. I was 11. Like what do you do? I told some of my closest friends and eventually I had my friend write my mom a detailed email of everything that was going on because I couldn't tell them myself," adds Sampson.
A friend kept her promise and sent the email to Sampson's about the inappropriate behavior, which was reported to the principal. Sampson and her mom later filed a police report.
Sampson says she didn't want to testify against Clark in court as an 11-year-old so settled on Clark being fired from the school.
”As an 11-year-old child, like are you ready for that? No. Like I wasn’t. So I was confident that as long as he wasn’t able to get to teach anymore, or harm any other children, that that was my job and that I was done."
But Clark wasn't fired. The next year, he began working at Monroe Middle School, another OPS school.
"It doesn't make sense to me that he has been able to get another job in the same district that close of proximity in time - like it was April to August and OPS was just kind like of like, let's rehire him, let's give him another job. And then he was coaching softball teams," says Sampson.
In a statement, OPS spokesperson, Monique Farmer said "OPD informed us that they did not have enough evidence to move forward with criminal charges. OPS conducted its own internal investigation as well and did not have enough information to recommend termination of employment following the investigation.”
