A shocking report from the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has revealed hundreds of cases of teachers sexually grooming and assaulting CPS students in 2022 and earlier.
The report, released last week, details disturbing encounters between staff and students, including one CPS teacher who “groomed and sexually assaulted” a 17-year-old girl on multiple occasions. In a move that will feel familiar to parents already sounding the alarm about school officials encouraging students to be open about sexual issues with teachers while hiding it from parents, the girl told investigators “she began to think of him as her friend and therapist.” The teacher is accused of repeatedly groping and touching the student, telling her, “I like the way you look in your jeans.” Text messages and Snapchats verified some of the accusations, according to the report.
The accused teacher is now battling termination by CPS.
That was just one example among hundreds provided by the IOG.
An OIG investigation found that a former JROTC staff member had sex with a female high school student over the course of a year when she was 16 to 17 years old. During this period, the JROTC staff member provided the student with alcohol and consumed marijuana around her. He had the student buy marijuana for him (before it was legal in Illinois) and bring it to the school. Cell phone records showed hundreds of text messages and calls between the JROTC staff member and the student. The OIG reviewed text messages that were overtly sexual, including “I’m ready to f*** right now … I’m not gonna be gentle either.” The investigation also revealed that when the JROTC staff member became aware that he might be under investigation, he threatened to kill the student and her family if she disclosed the sexual abuse. – CPS OIG Fiscal Year 2022 Annual Report, page 42
In one report, when a student approached a teacher about another teacher who had exposed his genitals to her, she was told it was her fault because of her “provocative clothing.”
A high school physical education teacher exposed the area around his penis to an eleventh-grade female student when they were alone in a driver’s education trailer near the school. The teacher exposed his pubic hair and the area around his penis by repeatedly letting his sweatpants drop to the area of his pubic line. However, the teacher would immediately pull up his pants when other people walked by, further indicating that he was intentionally exposing himself to the student. The student reported the incident to two other staff members within days of the occurrence, but both of them failed to notify the school’s administration as they were required to do as mandated reporters. Instead, the staff members made excuses for the teacher. One of them said that the conduct was probably unintentional and that he did not believe the teacher would sexually harass a student because he had a daughter of his own. The other staff member blamed the student for wearing provocative clothing, implying that she brought the problem on herself. – CPS OIG Fiscal Year 2022 Annual Report, page 43
Another case shows a substitute teacher grooming his female students and even alleges he offered rides to one teenage girl, commenting on her social media and telling her he loved her.
A high school substitute teacher engaged in a systematic pattern of grooming behaviors with female students. The teacher made intimate physical contact with students (including kisses, sexual hugs, and back-rubs), openly solicited sexual acts (such as asking a student to recruit another student for a “threesome”), harassed students with inappropriate comments (including asking about student’s sex lives, telling a student that he loved her, remarking on a student’s body, commenting on a student’s “hickey,” and calling himself “well hung”), had extensive personal communications with students on social media and by cell phone, and engaged in other common grooming techniques (such as giving a student unnecessary passes to exclude her from class, and encouraging students to confide in him about personal problems). – CPS OIG Fiscal Year 2022 Annual Report, page 46
The list goes on and on, excruciatingly (the following bullet point list consists of direct quotes from the report).
- teacher engaged in hundreds of cell phone communications with another former female student, both before and after her graduation, and that many of their calls occurred late at night and lasted over an hour.”
- an elementary school teacher sexually touched a CPS student between 1996 and 1999, when the student was approximately 11 to 14 years old. The teacher purchased food and gifts for the student and members of his family. The teacher also spent the night in the student’s bedroom, having sex with the student.
- a former CPS teacher had sexual intercourse with a CPS student several years ago following a period of grooming the student that included buying her gifts and giving her rides in his vehicle without consent.
- A charter school administrator took a high school junior to a Broadway musical in downtown Chicago. When the administrator invited him to go see the musical, the student recalled him saying, “you don’t say no when [someone in the administrator’s position] asks you to go somewhere.”…Years of cash transfers to the student from the administrator’s personal bank account alone topped $50,000 and started shortly after the student graduated (the student also stated that the administrator would hand him cash when they met).
- A high school teacher exchanged approximately 4,000 messages with a student in a period of just under two years, including 400 messages on a single day. The teacher repeatedly asked the student to keep secrets and made demeaning comments to her about her physical appearance. The teacher also discussed a relationship that he had with a former male student, stating that the two had “reconnected and things happened,” mentioned that he was in an open marriage and was attracted to other people, repeatedly brought up the fact that he was bisexual, and frequently asked the student about her sexual orientation.
- A vendor employee called a fourth-grade female student “sexy” and made other prohibited comments to her about her physical appearance.
- An elementary school teacher touched a student’s face and frequently touched students’ arms, shoulders, backs, and waists on numerous occasions and in a manner that made them feel uncomfortable. The teacher admitted to some of the conduct, although he denied having any inappropriate intent. The students provided consistent accounts of the way the teacher touched female students and indicated it was a pattern of behavior for him.
- A high school teacher inadvertently displayed images from a pornographic website while sharing his screen with students. The teacher acknowledged accessing the website, but stated he was not aware he was still sharing his screen, and no evidence showed that it was done with the intention of showing the website to students.
That is just a small sampling of the the OIG report, which found more than 600 sexually inappropriate and corroborated incidents between CPS staff and students.
So far only 16 criminal charges have been filed.
A common thread in these reports is adults in authority encouraging students to be comfortable sharing their sexual interests, questions and identity with them, and developing a rapport that made students drop their guards, which led to private encounters and further abuse.
The textbook definition of grooming.