It's rare that you get to read just how a school district investigates teacher misconduct.
July 4, 2008 - Joe Stacy, 56, a band director at Francis Howell North High School who abruptly resigned this year was accused of having a sexual relationship with a former student, according to a school district report. No criminal charges have been filed.
The school district report was filed with documents related to Stacy's divorce. Stacy's wife filed for divorce Feb 1. The district began investigating in March when a board member discovered an e-mail with the allegations, sent last summer from a 2007 graduate of the school. The report was completed by the school district in April 2008.
Francis Howell spokeswoman Jennifer Gasper said the district sent the report to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The office referred the information to the state attorney general, which represents the education department at disciplinary hearings to revoke or suspend a teacher's license. No such hearing has been scheduled regarding Stacy, who still has a license, a spokesman said.The newspaper reports that the district also consulted with St. Peters police early on about the allegations that a sexual relationship with a student started in high school, but an officer said no charges could be pursued if the girl would not confirm it. [In fact, the district report says they contacted police AFTER the investigation was completed.]
School District Report PDF
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TT - What is amazing is the number of students who confirmed the relationship or reported that they saw e-mails from the student to the band director expressing concern that she might be pregnant. Several of the girls showed these e-mails to their mothers. The district report called for the teacher to be fired; he resigned instead.
At no time did the school contact the parents of the girl in their investigation.
At the time of the investigation she had graduated and was 18, however, the sexual activity may have begun when she was a sophomore and the district investigator concluded that there was tangible evidence that he was intimate with "a student on several occasions." Obviously, before she graduated. Interestingly, when talking to the police in that single telephone call, school authorities alluded to the one incident at the lake and told police she was over 18 at the time. There is no mention in their report that they informed the police of any prior incidents.
No police investigation would have excluded the parents from the investigation.
There is no mention in the report of the date of the e-mails regarding the student's pregnancy, something that a competent police investigation could have pursued and documented. Incredibly, one teacher warned him that the student "wanted him" -- a 56-year-old man! A former choir teacher "warned him" about the student. AND THEY DIDN'T THINK THIS WAS WORTH REPORTING TO THE ADMINISTRATION if only so administrators could intervene and make certain the band director was clear on the possible boundary issues?? Or offer a solution that would have allowed him to avoid the problem of an aggressive student, if they believed that was the problem.
Our fear is such investigations compromise evidence, giving the teacher and student time to erase e-mails or eliminate other evidence. Giving them, in fact, fair warning if they want to do so.
Our greatest concern about those "Our Own Investigations" is that students who do come forward are often ignored, their testimony, often given unwillingly because they don't want to harm a student or a teacher, is discounted as unreliable, hearsay, or insufficient even if they would make excellent witnesses. Even if they could provide police with the information to take to the parents to help confront the student who doesn't want to testify against the teacher.
What does that tell students about doing the right thing?
