BostonGlobe.com29%
As Miss Hall’s School abuse investigation continues, Berkshire DA says more survivors are coming forward 4%
By John R. Ellement2%
7/23/2026, 9:29:25 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 5 faulty reasoning types, including Fundamental Attribution Error, Self-Serving Bias, and Overconfidence Bias, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 18.2% saturation with 96 hits. Analysis detected 192 faulty-reasoning hits from 528 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 16.9% and a BS Rank of 4% (21,163 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 96.70% of the article peer group.
Berkshire District Attorney Timothy J.
Shugrue said Thursday his investigation into sexual misconduct allegations at a private Pittsfield school for girls is not over.
Shugrue spoke about the Miss Hall’s school inquiry that has led to the indictment of a former teacher on three counts of rape and now a child endangerment charge against a former top administrator.
“We are still not done,” he said.
”We are getting additional information from other survivors, so we are still working on that, and we are not by any means done with this investigation."
Shugrue’s focus on Miss Hall’s began in 2024 when two former students, Hilary S.
Simon and Melissa Fares, publicly described being groomed and then allegedly raped by ex-teacher Matthew Rutledge while they were students, although at separate times.
Rutledge pleaded not guilty to three rape charges filed against him in March and is free on bail awaiting trial, records show.
The public stance by the two women led the school to conduct an internal investigation that found misconduct between staff and students dating back to the 1940s, records show.
Shugrue has focused on the allegations made by Fares and Simons covering their time at school — Simon graduated in 2005 and Fares, 2010 — while it was being led by Jean Norris as the head of school.
They publicly described the abuse they suffered during their teen academic years.
The Berkshire Eagle first reported the issue in 2024.
Norris was indicted on the misdemeanor child endangerment charge Wednesday.
Shugrue said documents from the school’s files and investigation by State Police and prosecutors has identified multiple times Norris was alerted to Rutledge’s behavior between 2008 and 2010.
“I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t find it very perverse about how the school came first and the girls came last,” he said.
“They were more concerned about their liability and about their reputation than they were about what was being reported.”
He said Norris never notified the Department of Children and Families as required by state law, and even kept Rutledge in a position of authority over students that included his serving as a gateway to college admissions personnel.
“He used it to his advantage and to their disadvantage, and manipulated and used them for personal sexual gratification,” Shugrue said.
“This was a systematic failure.”
Norris’s lawyer, Jim Glasser, said on a phone call Wednesday that Norris vehemently denies the allegations against her.
“She did not know that Matthew Rutledge had abused students at Miss Hall’s School and was shocked and heartbroken when she learned about the allegations in spring of 2024,” Glasser said.
“Ms.
Norris will defend herself against this unfounded charge.”
She is tentatively scheduled to be arraigned in Berkshire Superior Court on Aug.
17.
Miss Hall’s School is a private, independent high school for girls founded in 1898.
It has 200 students, 70 percent of whom board at the school in the Berkshires.
The rest are day students, according to its website.
Correspondent Hannah Goeke contributed to this report.
John R.
Ellement can be reached at john.ellement@globe.com.
Follow him @JREbosglobe.
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.