Chicago’s education watchdog is calling on the city’s public school system to address rising cases of sexual misconduct between adults and students, citing a high number of complaints and telling the system to implement more training for third-party employees.
The Chicago Public Schools’ Office of the Inspector General released a report on Tuesday detailing that the watchdog received 2,075 total complaints spanning several topics, up from 1,825 received the previous year. The office investigated about a third of the complaints, or around 685, the report stated via the Chicago Tribune.
Allegations of sexual misconduct remained the most common complaint received by the agency, with 446 complaints filed during the yearlong period between July 2022 and June 2023, down from the 470 received for last year’s period. The agency investigates all adult-and-student sexual misconduct allegations, spanning from physical acts to “nonsexual” conduct, such as grooming.
“While the volume of allegations and the number of substantiated cases of sexual misconduct understandably causes concern within the District and impacted school communities, there is no indication that the frequency of these occurrences is higher within CPS than in other districts nationwide,” the report states, citing a lack of similar reporting by other districts.
The watchdog agency flagged the need for CPS to adopt training protocols for volunteers and third-party employees, as several founded cases of sexual misconduct involved volunteer coaches or vendor employees tasked with student outreach or mentorship with students as young as 7 years old.
“Whereas employees need to submit training on an annual basis to show that they understand the policies related to boundaries with students, sexual harassment, sex discrimination — there is not a similar construct around the way that vendor employees are trained before they engage with our students,” Inspector General Will Fletcher said.
Fletcher’s office urged CPS to include “clearly articulated expectations” in its onboarding process and create a searchable database to show the training status of vendor employees who are expected to have contact with students.
Cases that were reported to the office and substantiated by the office ranged in severity from sexist comments to eight instances of sexual abuse — leading to five CPS-affiliated adults facing criminal charges. Most of the cases did not involve physical abuse but instead dealt with inappropriate boundaries among adult staff members and students, per the report.
One of the complaints involved a former Chicago Police Department officer who, while previously serving as a high school security officer, allegedly sexually abused a 16-year-old female student for five months. He has since been indicted on several counts of criminal sexual assault, and his case is pending in Cook County, per the report.
A former charter school coach was arrested on child pornography and sexual exploitation of a child charges after a parent reported a text the coach allegedly sent her son — one of over 700 messages in two months.
The inspector general’s office also investigated a case in which a former student reported a high school teacher for sexual abuse when they were a student from 2005 to 2006. The dismissal of the teacher, who was still actively working at the school, is pending, the report said.
In cases where a sexual misconduct complaint is not substantiated, the inspector general’s office often refers the staff member involved to additional training. Last year, 145 CPS teachers and other staffers were recommended for training, per the report.
Chicago Public Schools said in a statement to the outlet that the district will take the findings of the inspector general’s office seriously.
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“As a District, Chicago Public Schools take seriously our responsibility to protect the safety of our staff, students and families and to serve our CPS community with integrity, and protect our investments and resources,” CPS said.
The district added it will continue to promote “the highest ethical standards and that our employees act in the best interest of our students, the District, and our city.”
Rachel Schilke is a breaking news reporter at the Washington Examiner. Originally from Frankfort, Illinois, she graduated from the University of Iowa in May 2022 and served as a managing editor at the Daily Iowan with a focus on crime and courts and local government. Follow her on X: @rachel_schilke.
