Teacher sexual misconduct bill gets initial approval as Kentucky graduate describes abuse
A bill aimed at teacher sexual misconduct involving K-12 students was approved Tuesday by Kentucky’s House Education Committee as a young woman described how she was sexually abused by her high school teacher.
House Bill 275 filed by James Tipton, R-Taylorsville, would strengthen a school’s ability to prevent child sexual abuse by adult staff.
Tipton told fellow lawmakers on the committee that on any given day, news reports detail incidents of Kentucky school staff allegedly sexually abusing students.
The Herald-Leader’s September 2022 investigation highlighted just how significant the problem of teacher sexual misconduct is in Kentucky, Tipton said.
The newspaper obtained 194 cases of teachers who voluntarily surrendered or had their license revoked or suspended from 2016 to 2021. Of those, 118 — 61% — lost their license due to sexual misconduct. The overwhelming majority of those cases involved male teachers and teenage girls.
The Herald-Leader also found instances where teachers who had previously been accused of sexual misconduct moved to other school districts and were accused again of misconduct.
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Kotomi Yokokura, a University of Kentucky student and a graduate of a Kentucky high school, said she was a survivor of grooming and sexual abuse by her high school teacher.
She said the teacher gained her trust, then emotionally manipulated her. During tutoring sessions, he gave her massages, exposed himself and sexually abused her, she said.
An anonymous adult told the principal, who notified Yokokura’s parents. Yokokura contacted Kentucky State Police.
“Every time I closed my eyes, I would be brought back to the back seat of a car with a teacher who had just taken my clothes off,” Yokokura told lawmakers Tuesday.
She said later, the teacher professed his love for a recent graduate and continued texting students.
“I was not the first person to experience educator sexual misconduct in Kentucky and I’m not the last,” she said.
She said the bill would prevent teachers from being able to continue abusing students.
Yokokura, a graduate of Beechwood High School in Fort Mitchell, also testified about the abuse in 2023 when lawmakers were considering a similar bill, the Cincinnati Inquirer reported. The teacher resigned but had not been charged last year, Cincinnati.com reported.
Among its provisions, House Bill 275 would prohibit a public school district or public charter school from entering a nondisclosure agreement relating to misconduct involving a minor or student. It would require school district applicants to disclose being the subject of any allegations or investigations in the previous 12 months and consent to a reference check.
The legislation would require all records relating to an allegation of abusive conduct to be retained in an employee’s personnel file unless the allegation is proven false. If it is false, records and references relating to the allegation must be removed from the employee’s personnel file.
A certified nonpublic school, which includes most private and church-related schools, would also have to follow the bill’s requirements.
Under the bill, the Kentucky Department of Education would develop training related to sexual misconduct for employees to undergo every five years.
In the 2023 Kentucky General Assembly, House Bill 288, also sponsored by Tipton, proposed beefing up screening and disclosure requirements of teachers who had been accused of sexual misconduct, but did not pass despite unanimous approval in the House and a Senate committee. The bill did not get a vote before the full Senate.
Tipton said it was because questions on the bill didn’t get resolved in a timely manner.
State Rep. Tina Bojanowski, D-Louisville, told Yokokura, “As a teacher, I am horrified that someone violated your trust in this manner. I for one will try do everything I can to prevent this from happening to another child.”
State Rep. Steven Doan, R-Erlanger, and State Rep. Lisa Willner, D-Louisville, wanted to make sure that the prohibitions on non-disclosure agreements wouldn’t mean that victims’ names would be released.
Tipton said the intent of the language is to prevent an agreement between a school district and educator that would keep the incident private, not to allow a minor child’s information to become public. He said he would adjust language in the bill to clarify that.
Rep. Steve Riley, R-Glasgow, said there has been an increase in the crimes and people involved need to be severely punished. He noted, however, that the vast majority of teachers “are good people who do good things every day.”
After the bill was approved, Kentucky Youth Advocates executive director Terry Brooks said, “by strengthening schools’ ability to keep kids safe from adults with allegations or substantiations of sexual misconduct, we can prevent child abuse and promote a safe and caring learning environment.”
House Bill 275 now goes to the full House.
