Shining a Light on Sexual Misconduct in Schools
VOSD is committed to uncovering systemic challenges that affect our community. Sometimes these stories require more than the persistence of a single reporter. They need a team of people — journalists, data analysts, attorneys — and a range of tools. VOSD is mounting an initiative to support this kind of work. Right now, the focus is on an investigation into sexual misconduct by public school employees against students and other educators.
Investigative reporter Ashly McGlone is working to obtain complaints, investigation reports, findings and settlements from public schools throughout the region using the state’s open records laws. She has filed more than 40 records requests and received sexual misconduct files from 20 school districts, involving dozens of employees. We’ve been poring through 10,000 pages of documents.
Our work so far has revealed a system that allows some educators facing multiple accusations to quietly resign without explanation or get reassigned to another department or school. More often, though, employees are reprimanded privately — sometimes repeatedly — as harassment persists for years, impacting generations of students.
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Catch up on the biggest stories in our school sexual misconduct investigation below, or read the complete series here.