OXFORD – SAD 17 officials will not hire an outside investigator to look into allegations of sexual harassment at the elementary level.

Superintendent Mark Eastman confirmed late Monday afternoon that he was advised by the school district’s attorneys from Drummond, Woodsum and MacMahon of Portland that an independent investigation by the district will not be necessary since the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, has launched its own review.

“This is welcome news,” Eastman said of the federal review, which he said will provide a non-biased, impartial examination of claims by a Paris couple that school officials failed to conduct an appropriate investigation into alleged harassment of their daughter by several second-grade students at the Paris Elementary School this past school year.

Just prior to the involvement of the Office of Civil Rights, school board members agreed to an independent review of the allegations, but only if the school’s attorneys OK the move.

Martin and Liesha Petrovich of Paris say their 7-year-old daughter was subject to continued harassment by boys ages 7 and 8 since last fall, including harassment of a sexual nature. Liesha Petrovich has said her daughter was so traumatized that she had to be pulled out of school in May.

The Petroviches were informed by civil rights attorney Donna Russell on July 13 that the Office of Civil Rights accepted the complaint for resolution because the allegation falls within the jurisdiction of Title IX, the education amendment of 1972, and its implementing regulation, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.

Russell said SAD 17 is subject to the provisions of the federal law because it receives federal financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Education.

In the letter to the Petroviches, Russell said the Office of Civil Rights for Region 1, which is based in Boston and covers the New England area, will specifically investigate whether the district failed to respond appropriately when notified of alleged sexual harassment, contrary to the federal law. If that’s found, then as a penalty the school district could lose substantial federal aid, but only if the school is not responsive to enforcement action if found in violation of federal law.

The Office of Civil Rights has requested that school officials supply them with documentation pertinent to their investigation.

Eastman said district officials are still compiling the information, which is due to the Office of Civil Rights by mid-August.

“We have to go back over the entire period, in our case back to November (2006) and pull a lot of pieces of information together. It’s a bit time-consuming,” he said of compiling information such as school policies and procedures. The data packet is expected to be about 50 to 60 pages long, he said.

Eastman said the review comes as a relief in one sense because it allows the school to provide the third party-investigator with material that it was unable to release previously because of Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act confidentiality laws.

“We feel handcuffed because we cannot violate student confidentiality. In the third-party review you’re required to supply all the information,” he said of the scrutiny the case will undergo.

David Thomas, spokesman for the Department of Education in Washington, said similar investigations generally take about six months to complete, but may take longer.