CPS Sexual Assault

Tribune Explosive Report on Sexual Assault 

By Jim Vail

Sex predator & former Walter Payton music teacher Robert Weaver

The Chicago Tribune has written a recent series of investigative articles that expose sexual assault by teachers and coaches that the Chicago Public Schools have tried to cover up.

Some of the stories are really alarming - such as a music teacher at Walter Payton who slept with many students while he tutored them to become wonderful sopranos and tenors. 

It makes one want to scream that such abuse is taking place right in our schools where the children are supposed to be safe.

It appears CPS is playing the role of the Catholic Church which also hired powerful defense lawyers to defend itself, spending almost a billion dollars. The Catholics crime would be to just move the collared rapists around to different churches, while CPS would force teachers or employees to resign and the next place would know no better about why they were dismissed.

Unless of course you asked questions. 

I was surprised when one attorney told me he defended a teacher years ago who was doing sexually inappropriate things with his students, such as snapping their bras, etc. He didn't take the lawyer's advise to just resign, and instead fought his case and lost. He later moved out of state and once again got in trouble - once a sex offender, always a sex offender? - and asked this attorney be a character reference.

Yes, sex offenders have to be stopped, they are violent criminals. And penalties should probably increase when such criminal acts are committed by people we entrust to educate and take care of our children.

However, there is another side to this story. There is a reason why CPS takes its time to investigate. It certainly wants to protect its bottom line and fight unproven allegations. But not all accusations turn out to be true. In fact, many are simply false.

Second City Teachers biggest story was when we interviewed Paul Rummelhoff, a Lane Tech swim coach accused by one of his female swimmers in 2014 of sexually molesting some of the swimmers.

Despite the Dept. of Children and Family Services finding him not guilty and the story completely made up by the girls, Rummelhoff still was suspended and not allowed back into the classroom. They wanted him to resign. The fact that his sweet face was all over the TV when ABC TV broke the story probably gave the impression to many that he was already a guilty sex offender, although he wasn't.

It took a valient fight, which we began here at Second City Teachers, to get Rummelhoff's story out, ABC TV to do a follow-up story and many parents who wanted the swim coach to return to his job because he was very good. They spoke out at the Chicago Board of Education meeting and the board then made a deal to give him his job back, but he would no longer be able to coach the swim team. 

There was another substitute teacher who told me at a union delegates meeting a few years ago that he was no longer able to sub and he didn't know why. I asked the Chicago Teachers Union to look into his problem, and he later called me to thank me that he was back on the job. It turned out that a female student made a false accusation that he had groped her.

Students, as well as adults, can be criminally minded. The tricky part is navigating what is true and what is false. We still have a system where you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.

But when emotions run high - and certainly teachers raping students or accused of raping students can boil anyone's blood - lots of mistakes can happen. It is important that CPS and the Chicago Tribune acknowledge protecting our students doesn't mean throwing innocent teachers under the bus!