On November 3rd, an official police investigation began into allegations of child sexual abuse at Daphne Elementary school in Baldwin County Alabama.

The allegations are that a PE Teacher at Daphne Elementary had inappropriate sexual contact with a 7-year old girl on multiple occasions for a period of approximately one month between the dates of October 1st and November 3rd, 2017.

IPJ has confirmed that an open investigation is currently underway with Daphne’s Police Department, but Daphne PD would not directly comment on the matter.

On December 5th – a month after the police investigation began – a parent of a student who attends Daphne Elementary addressed the Baldwin County school board and expressed serious concerns about the sexual abuse that had occurred at the school.

“I would like to know if it’s true that a male PE coach has been suspended with pay, for inappropriate behavior, relationships? If its true that this same coach has had previous reports of inappropriate behavior? Is it true that a number of parents have made complaints in the past, and that there have been several HR investigations involving this teacher? If so, why was he not terminated? is it true that there’s an open investigation for child sex abuse? Is it true that teachers have been ordered not to comment on this? Is this person going to be allowed to resign? And finally, what actions has the school system implemented to protect our school children fro things like this?”

Parent, School Board Meeting (December 5, 2017)

The name of the woman complainant is being withheld for privacy concerns. The name of the PE teacher in-question is known to IPJ investigators but is being withheld pending the police investigation.

The school board video

School board videos are normally posted to the Baldwin County school board website within 1-2 days of the meeting. However, by Friday December 8th (3-days after the school board meeting) the video recording had still not been made available to the public.

In the days that followed, IPJ sent multiple emails to Terry Wilhite, Communications Director for Baldwin County Schools asking about the recording. Wilhite did not respond to IPJ’s emails or requests. IPJ also sent multiple emails to Superintendent, Carl “Eddie” Tyler regarding the reported allegations. Tyler did not respond to IPJ either.

On Monday December 11th, IPJ investigators attempted once again to obtain the video recording by contacting Wilhite and Tyler’s offices, but neither were available for comment.

IPJ then contacted Daphne Elementary, where the alleged incident occurred. The Principal, Jonathan Ellis, was not available, but the school secretary took down IPJ investigator’s contact information and agreed to ask the Principal to call IPJ back.

Silencing the troops

At 9:12 a.m. on Tuesday, December 12th, instead of responding to IPJ’s numerous phone calls and emails about the allegations, and instead of releasing the school board video, Terry Wilhite sent a district-wide email to teachers, principals and secretaries urging them not to speak with IPJ investigators.

In his email, titled “Alert! Please be aware of this caller”, Wilhite calls IPJ investigators “not legitimate journalists.” Wilhite then advises teachers and administrators to direct IPJ to contact Terry Wilhite himself.

Wilhite did not mention to his audience that he’d already been ignoring IPJ’s questions for the days leading up to his email. Similarly, Wilhite did not disclose that that he was withholding the video of the board meeting, which was the primary reason IPJ was contacting him in the first place.

To clarify, since July 2017, over 20 phone calls that have been made to Wilhite and Tyler’s offices, including at least a dozen phone messages left with administrators and secretaries – nobody has ever called back.

“Is it true that teachers have been ordered not to comment on this?” – Parent, School Board Meeting (December 5, 2017)

“As far as ordering teachers to be quiet, I don’t know if an order is ever issued, when I was a principal I never ordered any teachers to be quiet.” – Superintendent Carl “Eddie” Tyler, School Board Meeting (December 5, 2017)

One week later, Wilhite appeared to do exactly what the parent from Daphne was worried about in the December 5th board meeting, and what Tyler said he never did – issuing instructions for teachers to be quiet.

On December 12th, Wilhite sent out the following email to teachers urging them not to talk to investigators:

By attempting to discredit IPJ, and by asking teachers and administrators to forward IPJ’s questions and investigators to his offices (so he can continue ignoring the questions), Wilhite is effectively trying to prevent IPJ investigators from being able to report on matters that relate to the school board.

An unexpected result

Wilhite’s email resulted in a measurable reaction from teachers within Baldwin County. Four employees who received the email brought it to investigators on the first day, which is how IPJ was made aware of the email that Wilhite sent in the first place.

By the time the week was over, IPJ investigators were contacted by over a dozen current and former staff of Baldwin County’s school system, including dozens more concerned parents.

Most of the staff that contacted IPJ credited Wilhite’s attempts to silence teachers via his email with – in-turn – motivating employees to speak-out instead.

Employees that contacted IPJ requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation from Wilhite, Tyler, and the school board.

Some of the employees expressed feeling as if the email was meant to intimidate school officials and teachers from speaking-out about issues that they felt were being swept under the rug.

When asked why one employee contacted IPJ, the individual responded, “to take a stand against the lack of transparency, and the obvious attempts to brush something under the rug that is going on at Daphne Elementary, and probably other schools too.”

Another employee said, “as soon as I saw the email, I knew that there was something going on that they were trying to hide.”

“If they’re telling people not to talk to the media, then that immediately raises a red flag,” said a concerned parent.

Regarding the board meeting video, one employee told an IPJ investigator, “the fact that they are ignoring you [IPJ] for a week, ignoring your requests for the video, ignoring your questions, and then they turn around telling us all to direct you back to them, is basically them stonewalling you.”

Many parents and teachers attribute the general lack of transparency to administrators’ greater desire to preserve their own reputations.

Those who contacted IPJ expressed concerns ranging from Wilhite’s own email, to the school board’s general lack of transparency and even, as one teacher described, “a culture of emphasizing reputation over education.”

A parent said, “the email that was sent out [by Wilhite] shows that the board is more concerned with protecting their own image than with protecting the kids who attend these schools in the first place.”

Eventually, 2 days after Wilhite sent the email to school district employees urging them not to speak with investigators, and after 9 days of IPJ investigators consistently requesting the video, Wilhite finally posted the video.

Here’s the video that IPJ felt parents deserved to see:

There appears to be a pattern of delaying or withholding the release of board meeting videos from the public when complaints are made against the school board or teachers at those meetings.

IPJ is yet to receive the video of a board meeting in August when allegations of bias and discrimination were made against the school board. According to parents and students, Wilhite claims that the video of students complaining to the school board was “corrupted.”

The August and December school board meetings have two things in common – parents and/or students made complaints during those meetings, and Terry Wilhite has either delayed, obstructed, or refused releasing the video records from those days.

IPJ will continue reporting on the availability of school board meeting video records, as well as issuing updates on the allegations of sexual abuse at Daphne Elementary as more information becomes available.