Chicago City Wire

Hundreds of Chicago Public Schools teachers sexually groomed, assaulted and raped CPS students last school year.

That's according to the report released this week by the CPS Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which said it received more than 600 "adult on student" misconduct allegations for the 2021-22 school year, substantiating more than half of them and initiating criminal charges in 16 cases.

They include a CPS teacher who "groomed and sexually assaulted" a 17- year-old student on three occasions. The student "said that she began to think of him as her friend and therapist" and that he "touched and groped the student while hugging her, touching her thighs and buttocks under the pretext of removing lint from her clothing."

“I like the way you look in your jeans," the student recounted the teacher as saying.

Allegations against the teacher were "in part corroborated by text messages on the CPS- sanctioned Remind app, Snapchat records, and a student witness who overheard a conversation between the teacher and student" as well as the teacher's own statements. 

The teacher, who is currently fighting termination with the Illinois State Board of Education, was charged with multiple counts of sexual assault but acquitted by a Cook County jury in November.

The OIG found that a CPS Junior ROTC staff member had sex with a female CPS high school student "over the course of a year when she was 16 to 17 years old," providing her with alcohol and asking her to buy marijuana for him from her fellow students.

An investigation revealed "hundreds of text messages and calls" between the CPS staff member and and student, including "overtly sexual" ones. 

“I’m ready to f*** right now ... I’m not gonna be gentle either," the staff member texted the high school student.

He later "threatened to kill the student and her family" if they disclosed the relationship to investigators.

Other sex incidents include:

-- An employee of a CPS vendor "asked a fourth-grade student why her lips were chapped, and then stated that the student’s lips were chapped because she was 'sucking dick.'

--- CPS high school gym teacher who repeatedly exposed himself to one sophomore girl and connected with another 15 year old student on social media and "sent her photos and videos of himself masturbating and engaged in other sexual acts."

---A CPS substitute teacher who "asked a student to recruit another student for a 'threesome," told another student he loved her, repeatedly attempted to kiss a student and asked her "to make out with him," commented on a student’s “hickey" and described himself to students as "well hung."

---A CPS elementary teacher who "sexually touched" a CPS student repeatedly over several years, when he was 11 to 14 years old. He also "purchased food and gifts for the student and members of his family," and "spent the night in the student’s bedroom, having sex with the student."

--A CPS charter school administrator who "took a high school junior to a Broadway musical in downtown Chicago." During the performance, the administrator allegedly "touched the student’s leg with his own" and then, while driving the student home "slid his hand down inside of the front of the student’s pants and touched his genitals." 

The administrator later took the student on trips to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, London, Ibiza and the Bahamas.

--An employee of a CPS vendor asked a 19 year-old female student to dinner,  sent her a nude photo of himself and asked if he could join her while she was babysitting.

--A CPS high school teacher exchanged "approximately 4,000 (text) messages" with a female student over two years, including "400 on one day." In them, the teacher told the student he was "bisexual" and "that he was in an open marriage and was attracted to other people." 

The same teacher asked another student "to show him her underwear" and, while they were talking in his office, "asked if she wanted to take her clothes off."

--An employee of a CPS vendor "called a fourth-grade female student 'sexy' and made other prohibited comments to her about her physical appearance."

In a presentation to the CPS Board of Education in August, the CPS OIG reported that between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022, it opened investigations into 81 sexual touching cases, 35 cases of grooming, 33 cases of sexual abuse, 26 cases of sexual acts, 25 cases of in-person sexual comments, 14 sexual electronic communications, eight cases of "outcry about past (sexual) conduct and 243 cases it deemed "concerning: other."

"Concerning: other" cases "may involve leering, 'creepy' behavior or other potentially concerning behavior.

CPS Inspector General Will Fletcher was appointed by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot in June 2020. He previously worked for the Illinois Attorney General and as general counsel for the Chicago Police Department's Office of Professional Standards, now known as the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.

Fletcher is an attorney who worked at Jenner & Block and graduated from Northwestern University and Columbia Law School.