Wisconsin State Assembly questions DPI on grooming investigations

MADISON, Wis. - Lawmakers question what Wisconsin is doing to protect kids from grooming.

An Assembly committee wanted to question the state’s top elected education leader, but it didn’t happen.

Investigating the problem

Big picture view:

There are three ways to discipline a problem educator:

• The school can fire them
• The state can revoke the teacher’s license
• And/or prosecutors can charge them with a crime

"Grooming is a real problem. It is one we are seeing more and more," said Chief Patrick Patton of the Kenosha Police Department, who also notes that it can be hard to bring charges.

"We had to repeatedly go back to this family, this child’s family, and tell them: I’m sorry, there is nothing we can do."

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Lawmakers have questions about what the state's doing.

"I don’t understand why there is confusion. Do we have to explicitly write the word "grooming" in this law to spell out that grooming is not commonly accepted moral and ethical standards?" asked Republican State Rep. Amanda Nedweski.

Wisconsin's top elected education leader last week wrote: "The statutory definition of "immoral conduct" does not currently include grooming or professional boundary violations, limiting our agency’s ability to obtain critical pieces of information."

State Superintendent Jill Underly was invited to testify to this Assembly committee, but she didn’t show up. That led to bipartisan criticism.

"I’m disappointed that Dr. Underly is not here today. She should be here. I conveyed that to her team twice in the last week," said Democratic State Rep. Mike Bare.

Underly didn’t have to show up and on Thursday, Oct. 23, she was accepting an alumni award at her alma mater, Indiana University.

"I am deeply, deeply disappointed that Superintendent Underly could not bring herself to this meeting today. These are very, very serious questions," added Nedweski. "Dr. Underly did not even call me. She did not send an e-mail. I guess she just couldn’t find it important enough to be accountable to the public."

Other DPI leaders did attend. They admit DPI will end an investigation if the educator voluntarily gives up their license.

DPI says that leads to a binding, lifetime ban on their ability to teach, and it gets reported to a national database.

"Inside of the immoral conduct statute, there is an automatic ability for license holders who have had their licenses removed to either immediately request or wait out a time period and request again," said Deputy State Superintendent Thomas McCarthy. "When we find behavior that is at a level of objection that you are triggering the immoral conduct statute, we do not want those people ever in front of kids again."

This all comes in the wake of the Capitol Times report, saying public records show the state investigated 200 educators over a five-year span for allegations of grooming and sexual misconduct against students.

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"When the department is made aware of grooming behavior, we use any authority that we can find to get that teacher out of the classroom," added McCarthy. "When we hear about allegations of these things, we are deadly serious about this. When we find these things, we go after them."

"I heard a bunch of word vomit, I didn’t hear an actual answer," said Republican State Rep. Shae Sortwell.

The committee chairwoman says in the future she’ll introduce a bill to define grooming as a crime.

Response from DPI

What they're saying:

A DPI spokesperson released a statement regarding Dr. Underly not attending the committee meeting:

"Dr. Underly was unable to attend today's hearing due to a prior out-of-state commitment, which the committee chair was notified about earlier this week. She looks forward to appearing in upcoming hearings and working collaboratively with legislators to ensure every Wisconsin student learns and thrives in a safe environment."