CPS watchdog details a culture that failed to protect students
A report from Chicago Board of Education Inspector General Philip Wagenknecht, the watchdog that monitors Chicago Public Schools, details “pervasive” sexual misconduct between adults and students on more than one campus.
“Ubiquitous” is not a word we like to read in the context of children and schools.
Investigations by the Office of Inspector General found that in the large district, 44 female students and 21 male students were victims of misconduct, with students ranging in age from 4 to 19 years old. The report also provides detailed updates on egregious abuses committed by staff at the Little Village Lawndale High School campus.
In August, Brian Crowder, the school’s former dean, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for sexually abusing a student. The victim, now an adult, testified that when she was around 15, the former dean approached her in the school cafeteria and asked for her SnapChat username; she said the relationship eventually became sexual. Crowder’s lawyers said Crowder had the victim pregnant twicepressured her to have an abortion and posed as her parent during appointments. When she broke off the relationship, he threatened her.
In DecemberThe Chicago Board of Education has approved a $17.5 million settlement in this horrific case.
Problems with inappropriate touching on the campus of Little Village Lawndale High School went beyond this one case.
In another example, a teacher and athletic trainer blurred the line with a student, meeting outside of school to discuss their personal lives, exchanging more than 18,000 text messages over three and a half months and spending hours on the phone, often late at night, according to the report. The report reveals that the teacher and student were physical – sharing a kiss – without going into detail about how far the teacher took things. The victim is now an adult and did not conduct a police investigation, but the teacher was kicked out of class and put on a do-not-hire list.
On that same troubled campus, a popular teacher “who was known to exert a strong influence on his students, especially his female students,” repeatedly showed a tendency to establish connections with female students and pursue them after graduation, while presenting himself as a feminist and advocate for women. According to the OIG, “in at least four cases, Employee 3 met the former student in person and had sexual relations with him.” He claimed his behavior was appropriate “because CPS never told him not to do it.” The IG concluded that most of the alleged conduct was not criminal in nature, often due to the student’s age at the time of the incident. However, this is a profound breach of trust rooted in the relationships formed in the classroom.
The report goes on for pages regarding the toxic culture on this campus, where boundaries between bad actors and students apparently did not exist, and the problem was so bad that one student reported being targeted by three different professors.
NBC 5 found that since 2017, at least seven educators, including two administrators and five teachers, have resigned or been fired while under investigation for sexual misconduct at Little Village Lawndale High School. All 12 former students interviewed by NBC shared personal stories, saying “they witnessed, were approached by, or felt like they were pressured into having sexual relations with their former professors.”
The misconduct described in Little Village Lawndale occurred in the 2010s, before CPS tightened its surveillance after a Chicago Tribune investigation this led to stricter rules, including banning social media contact with students and creating a sexual allegations unit.
It is good to know that changes were made and that when the district became aware of misconduct, people were fired. Yet parents wonder how much other inappropriate behavior continues to occur in our public schools and how many children are still in the hands of adults who would abuse their power and authority. It is difficult to regain trust once it has been broken, especially when it involves children.
Although the bulk of the report’s findings focus on problems at Little Village Lawndale High School, it also details other disturbing cases of abuse, including a fourth-grade girl who was fondled on the bus by an aide on multiple occasions. At another school, an hourly employee was found to possess child pornography and sexually assault a child he was related to.
Reading this report is enough to make any parent wonder about the safety of their child at school. Past reforms are important, but they are not a guarantee. The inspector general’s findings are a reminder that protecting students requires constant vigilance and intolerance toward blurred boundaries. Public trust in schools is built on a simple promise: No child will be asked to trade safety for an education.
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