Teacher’s sexual issues not recorded

 

Now he faces charge of molesting young student

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090706/NEWS0102/307060010/Teacher+s+sexual+issues+not+recorded

By Andy Gammill, Tim Evans and Ben Fischer • andy.gammill@indystar.com | tim.evans@indystar.com | bfischer@enquirer.com • July 6, 2009

Indiana child welfare officials and school districts in two states had a responsibility to protect children in Lee N. Tibbetts’ classroom, but miscommunication and missteps among the agencies failed to catch a pattern of problematic behavior over three years.

That breakdown allowed Tibbetts to remain in the classroom despite a series of accusations, including one that eventually led to the math teacher being arrested on criminal charges alleging he molested a student while teaching for Indianapolis Public Schools.

A review by the Indianapolis Star and The Cincinnati Enquirer shows red flags about Tibbetts were raised as early as 2007, two years before police say he molested a 13-year-old Indianapolis boy.

Among the findings:

• Tibbetts resigned from Cincinnati Public Schools in 2007 while being investigated for making inappropriate comments to a student. Ohio law requires the district to report such resignations to state regulators, but the district can’t determine whether it did.

• Indianapolis Public Schools never contacted the Cincinnati school Tibbetts last worked for and failed to uncover his history before hiring him. IPS also failed to follow up on the serious claim in 2008 that Tibbetts had “come on” to a student and may not have documented even earlier concerns.

• Indiana’s Department of Child Services decided not to investigate the August 2008 claim that Tibbetts touched a 15-year-old boy’s leg and knee while asking sexually suggestive questions.

Through it all, Tibbetts kept teaching math – a position that gave him access to young boys.

It wasn’t until another student came forward in May to say Tibbetts molested him that Indianapolis police investigated the teacher and charged him with six counts of felony child molestation.

But when police dug further, they uncovered the incident the state ignored and a child solicitation charge.

Cincinnati red flags

The first red flags appear to have been raised in 2007 when an 18-year-old Cincinnati student claimed Tibbetts made sexual conversation with him and touched his arms and legs.

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Tibbetts resigned within weeks of the end of the school year while the district investigated him.

“It had not been completed … when he submitted his resignation,” spokeswoman Janet Walsh said.

Ohio law requires districts to alert the state when teachers resign while under investigation.

Last week, Cincinnati officials could find only a draft copy of a letter to the state about Tibbetts. Walsh said they were unable to confirm it was sent.

Scott Blake, an Ohio Department of Education spokesman, would not say whether the state received a letter because records on teacher misconduct are confidential unless the state takes disciplinary action. He declined to comment on Tibbetts’ issues in Cincinnati but said the state had not disciplined him.

If Cincinnati reported the matter and the state confirmed the behavior, it could have issued a public or private reprimand to Tibbetts, an action it has taken in the past in similar cases. That information could then be disclosed to Indiana officials at the time he requested a license there.

Instead, when Indiana education officials checked with the Ohio Department of Education, they confirmed Tibbetts was a teacher in good standing. His Indiana teaching license was approved in July 2007.

License granted, he applied to Indianapolis Public Schools to teach for the 2007-08 school year. The district ran a standard background check, including checking references with the Cincinnati schools, IPS officials said.

“When HR checked him, they had two letters from principals that were sterling,” IPS Superintendent Eugene White said. “He was clean.”

But IPS’ background check was limited: The district never checked with anyone at Tibbetts’ last school before he applied in Indianapolis. Instead, he was given forms by IPS to give to his references that they could send in to IPS. All three that came back were from administrators who worked with him earlier in his career.

That policy makes sense, IPS spokeswoman Mary Louise Bewley said, because potential employees might not want supervisors to know they’re looking for jobs. She said IPS also received a letter from Cincinnati Public Schools’ human resources department confirming Tibbetts’ dates of employment but raising no concerns.

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Cincinnati Public Schools says it has no record that IPS contacted the district to ask about Tibbetts, although it said individual principals could have been contacted without making a record in Tibbetts’ file.

In his first year in IPS, Tibbetts worked in the district’s alternative schools – and the district might have been made aware of the first hint of trouble.

Supervisors that year warned Tibbetts to avoid close relationships with students after concerns came to light from students or parents, said Jeffery C. White, a former IPS principal who later supervised Tibbetts.

District spokeswoman Bewley said Tibbetts’ personnel file showed no record of any incident during the 2007-08 school year. Repeated attempts to reach the administrator who supervised the teacher were unsuccessful.

Administrators learned of that prior incident only after another boy came forward.

Tibbetts had been on his new job at Marshall Community High School for only a few weeks in 2008 when a 15-year-old boy and his mother told the principal Tibbetts made sexual conversation with the boy and rubbed his arm and knee.

Administrators reported the incident to Child Protective Services.

From that point on, nothing went like as it should have.

IPS social worker Shawnieka Pope called the Department of Child Services hot line and told an operator about the accusation. that the teen had accused his teacher of making sexual conversation with him and rubbing his arm and knee. She told the state the boy said Tibbetts asked him if he was gay and if he had “done anything” with another boy. He then rubbed his knee and arm.

The agency decided the report didn’t merit investigation.

Jennifer Hubartt, a regional manager for the DCS Local Office in Marion County, said supervisors reviewing reports ask themselves one key question: If what I’m seeing were true, would that rise to the level of a crime under Indiana law.

When it received the 2008 report on Tibbetts, the agency chose not to assign it.

Based on the information the agency had, Hubbart Hubartt said, there was no other legal option. “I don’t think we’re at fault at all in this,” she said. “We regret that this person victimized people. But we couldn’t have done this differently under the Indiana law as it exists.”

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It wasn’t until nine months later when an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police detective dusted off the old report that the matter was investigated – based on the same allegations DCS declined to look into.

Two experts who reviewed the agency’s intake report obtained by the Star said the facts warranted investigation.

“DCS clearly fumbled the ball on this,” said Henry Karlson, professor emeritus at the Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis.

Karlson, an expert on child abuse, said the details DCS had would have constituted sexual misconduct with a minor under Indiana law if true.

“On this statement alone,” Karlson said of the report’s reference to Tibbetts touching the boy’s knee and arm, “I could probably get a conviction … from half the juries in Indiana.”

That statute says any adult “fondling or touching” a child at least 14 but younger than 16 “with intent to arouse or to satisfy the sexual desires of either the child or the older person” commits sexual misconduct with a minor.

Karlson said the threshold for launching an abuse investigation is much lower than what is needed to obtain a criminal conviction.

“He was ‘coming on’ to the child, which clearly indicated the child thought it was sexual,” Karlson said. “Add to that the rubbing of the knee while talking about sexual orientation and sexual activity. There were red flags all over this. I have no idea why they didn’t investigate this.”

Neither IPS nor Child Protective Services notified the Indianapolis police. After another boy came forward in May, a detective found a copy of the same report that the state had ignored.

This time, though, the accusations were more serious.

The 13-year-old boy told police the teacher performed oral sex on him at least six times, threatening him with low grades if he didn’t comply and coaching him to lie to an assistant principal who nearly walked in on them, according to a probable cause affidavit.

In the wake of the arrest, Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi said he faults both DCS and IPS for not referring the matter to local police.

The family of the 2008 victim is outraged that Tibbetts was allowed to remain with students despite all the red flags.

“They should have done something about it when we told them,” said a spokesman for the family. He said school and child welfare officials dropped the ball, leaving Tibbetts in the classroom.

The spokesman also blamed Cincinnati officials for allowing Tibbetts to continue having access to young boys. “They should have caught him back in Ohio,” he said. “They should have dealt with it then, but they swept it under the table, and that allowed him to come up here and take advantage of other kids.”