25 Investigates: State records reveal disturbing child sex abuse allegations against teachers

BOSTON — For the past year, 25 Investigates has been digging into teacher sexual misconduct in Massachusetts public schools. Now, a new layer to this story. We asked the state for documentation of teachers whose education licenses were suspended or revoked for sexual misconduct. Within the records, we uncovered evidence of a system that’s failing to keep kids safe.

Records obtained through a public records request from 25 Investigates reveal a teacher who exchanged more than 1,000 text messages with a student he was in a sexual relationship with in 2013.

Another teacher was taking a student on day trips and spending the night with them on weekends in 2015.

And one, who though not in a classroom since 2002, still held their teacher’s license in 2020, despite being a Level 3 registered sex offender.

“If we wait until the cases have already occurred, we’ve already failed these children,” said Jetta Bernier, executive director of Enough Abuse, a Massachusetts-based non-profit that works with school districts across the country to prevent child sexual abuse.

She examined some of the 25 Investigates findings.

“The big losers here are the kids, are the students,” Bernier said.

25 Investigates asked the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, or DESE, for 10 years of documentation of educators who lost their teachers’ licenses.

They provided us with about 60 records spanning from 2013 to 2023.

We found:

• 35 teachers surrendered their license when confronted with allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct;
• 7 had faced allegations of inappropriate relationships with students in other states;
• 15 licensed teachers had criminal convictions, principally for child sex crimes, in other states.

Possessing a license does not necessarily mean the teacher was in a Massachusetts classroom.

DESE says many times, the employment action at the district level comes first, and triggers a licensure investigation.

In November 2023, 25 Investigates created our own database of teacher sexual misconduct cases in Massachusetts. Our numbers surpassed that amount DESE was able to supply.

We found at least 75 school personnel in Massachusetts have either faced criminal charges or lawsuits filed since 2002 accusing them of sexually abusing students; 65 faced criminal charges.

“There’s mandated reporting for abuse and neglect, but not child sexual abuse,” said state Sen. Joan Lovely.

Lovely is the Assistant Majority leader in the Massachusetts Senate. She’s also a survivor of child sexual abuse.

“I’m a survivor at the age of six,” Lovely said. “For me, I had years of stomachaches. I was in and out of the doctor’s office testing everything for years. They couldn’t figure it out. It was because I was being sexually abused.”

Lovely has been leading the charge on Beacon Hill by sponsoring a bevy of bills to better protect kids in schools.

They include:

• Requiring schools have sex abuse prevention training to spot signs of grooming and abuse;
• Prohibiting age of consent as a defense for child sexual abuse;
• Enhancing employment screenings to keep known abusers out of schools.

Advocates refer to that as “passing the trash.”

“The perpetrator shows up in another school system and the behavior repeats. And now you have another child who is being sexually abused,” Lovely said.

For instance, in 2018, records reveal DESE sent a letter to a teacher in Oxford notifying them of allegations of misconduct. That’s when the department said it learned of “damaging sexual relationships” the teacher had with “many female high school students, including students in South Carolina and Rhode Island.”

Allegations included physical contact, exchanging nude photographs and ”highly sexualized text messages.”

That teacher later surrendered his license.

Another had surrendered a Rhode Island teaching license in 2006 after having a sexual relationship with a female student.

But Massachusetts became aware of that allegation and license surrender a decade later.

That teacher’s license was eventually revoked by Massachusetts.

“The system is very haphazard. It’s ‘helter-skelter,’” said Bernier.

Bernier says that system should be airtight.

“That’s going to make sure that every case involving the violation of a child’s rights to privacy and to their sexual health is going to be recorded so that we know how large the problem is,” Bernier said.

For the last year, 25 Investigates has been asking DESE to talk with us about our findings, the concerns of survivors and advocates, and the legislative pushes.

They have refused at every turn.

In a written statement to 25 Investigates, DESE spokesperson Jacqueline Reis said, “The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education works closely with school districts to keep children safe by addressing instances of educator misconduct.”

“We’re not reporting to a national database. And that’s what we need to do,” Lovely said. “There is a national database where this information would be reported to. And then for every single person that’s going to be employed in a school system, public or private, that database is reviewed to make sure that person is not on that database.”

DESE says it does report licensure actions, including actions based on child sexual abuse, to the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (NASDTEC) database.

25 Investigates also reached out to Senate President Karen Spilka and House Speaker Ron Mariano about the legislative efforts failing to get across the finish line for so many years.

“The Senate has made meaningful progress on sexual assault education and prevention during this session,” Spilka said in a statement. “Our work has included protecting victims of revenge porn, closing legal loopholes that may exist when sexual assault by a medical professional occurs, lengthening the statute of limitations for sexual assault victims, and codifying educational programs to teach young people about consent and healthy relationships. We will continue striving to protect our residents and young people, and look forward to continued conversations.”

Speaker Mariano declined to offer any comment.

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