Seattle Schools knew these teachers abused kids — and let them keep teaching

UPDATE: Seattle Public Schools has removed teacher James Johnson from the classroom. Read about that here. On a rainy morning two years ago, James Johnson, a Seattle teacher, punched an eighth grader in the jaw. They were in math class at Meany Middle School on Capitol Hill, with 32 students in the room. The boy, who is black, had called Johnson, who is also black, the N-word, according to students who were there. Johnson called the boy the N-word back, some students said.

LISTEN: Teacher James Johnson admits to punching a child in a face.







He got in the boy’s face, taunting him, and challenging him to respond. Students said the boy pushed his teacher in the chest to get away. A district investigation found that Johnson then grabbed the boy by the shirt, punched him, and shoved him out of the classroom. Hallway security camera footage shows the boy being violently pushed into the hallway, legs flailing. Seconds later, Johnson hurls the boy’s backpack into the hallway.

Keenan McAuliffe, a student in the class, said a hush fell over the room. “Everyone was kind of just shocked,” Keenan said. “I was like – what the heck? I’ve never seen anything like this.” Johnson was not fired — even though a Seattle Public Schools investigation found that he had punched his student in the face. Instead, he received a five-day, unpaid suspension and conflict management training. He currently teaches math at Washington Middle School.

A KUOW investigation found that Seattle Public Schools often allows teachers who harm students to stay in the classroom. Some are allowed to keep teaching even after multiple offenses. The district has also, on at least one occasion, removed evidence of misconduct from a teacher’s personnel file after forcing them out of the district. Through a public records request, KUOW obtained records for 10 cases in which teachers were disciplined for verbal abuse, physical abuse or sexual harassment against children in Seattle Public Schools from 2012 to 2018. Education attorneys told KUOW these 10 cases could potentially have resulted in termination. In only one case was a teacher actually forced out of the district. The cases include: A kindergarten teacher who was found to have pulled a student’s arm until she fell down, then told the girl “that is what you get when you don’t follow directions,” and denigrated another kindergartner in front of staff and students. The teacher received a written reprimand.

A special education teacher found to have slapped a young child on the face hard enough to leave a mark, then lied about it. That teacher got a 10-day suspension. An elementary school teacher with a history of yanking children’s hair was found to have pulled a slouching child by his ears “from a reclined to an upright position in his seat,” leaving the child quietly sobbing for the rest of class. The teacher received a written reprimand. Shannon McMinimee, a former attorney for Seattle Public Schools, said she was “stunned and appalled” by the list of cases. “I’m just not seeing a level of seriousness being considered with respect to behavior that’s physically and emotionally abusive to children,” said McMinimee, who is now in private practice. After dozens of interviews with teachers, principals, district officials, school board members, union officials, state regulators, education attorneys, parents and students, KUOW identified seven major flaws in the system that allow problem educators to get hired and stay in the classroom.

1 Districts are reluctant to fire teachers. It was not the first time James Johnson laid hands on a student. Personnel files from previous employers show a history of troubling behavior. In 2004, Johnson was disciplined for pushing a student into lockers in the Clover Park School District, near Tacoma. The student’s chain necklace broke during the conflict. Johnson was also counseled four years later, in the Kent School District, for anger and profanity in the classroom.

[Read about a Kent teacher who tweeted racist, bigoted messages. She's still teaching in the district.] And students and staff had complained about his behavior in at least three Seattle schools, including allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior toward teen girls.



After Johnson punched the boy at Meany Middle School, the district’s human resources department recommended that he be fired, said Clover Codd, who said she has led the department for three-and-a-half years. But after a hearing with then-Superintendent Larry Nyland, in which Meany Principal Chanda Oatis spoke on Johnson’s behalf, Nyland instead gave Johnson a five-day suspension. (Footnote 1) “You are recognized as a leader and are well-liked by both staff and students alike,” Nyland said in a discipline letter to Johnson. Johnson turned down interview requests and referred KUOW to his lawyers, who did not respond. He has claimed in writing that he punched the student instinctively, in self-defense, after the student pushed him. Student Elinor Earle was shocked to learn that her teacher could return after punching her classmate. “How does someone get away with assaulting a minor?” Elinor said recently. “It doesn't make a lot of sense to me.” Elinor said she and her classmates wanted to skip Johnson’s class on the day he returned, “because we watched [the assault] happen, and he knew that we saw it happen,” she said. Two days after returning to school, Johnson was back on administrative leave: This time because of new allegations that he had sexually harassed and threatened students. Those were the only two days Johnson worked over a 13-month span. He earned an estimated $134,000 during that time on paid leave from Seattle Public Schools. Midway through that stretch, in June 2018, a district investigation found that Johnson had, indeed, sexually harassed students. He had touched girls on the shoulders and legs and made them uncomfortable, the district found. He had baked a batch of brownies for one girl, an investigator wrote, and called female students “sweetheart,” “honey,” and “baby.” A student who had gotten help from him at lunchtime said she stopped going “because he ‘creeped’ her out,” the investigator reported. The district also initially found that Johnson had told students, “If you mess with me, you will have to have my foot removed from your ass.” Johnson has denied these claims. Several months later, the district sent Johnson notice for the second time that year that it had probable cause to fire him – this time, for sexual harassment and intimidation. He still did not lose his job. He was reassigned instead to The Center School as an “intervention specialist,” working one-on-one with struggling students. Personnel files show a Seattle Schools human resources official recommended against firing Johnson after the district re-interviewed key witnesses and found the evidence regarding the intimidation allegations was inconsistent. It is unclear why the sexual harassment findings did not result in discipline. During Johnson’s tenure with the district, three different superintendents would give him a reprieve from termination. The district declined multiple requests for interviews with Superintendent Denise Juneau. Former superintendent Larry Nyland did not respond to interview requests. Former superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson died in 2012.

2 Teachers get hired despite inadequate reference checks. Kevin Schmidt was one year into his time as an elementary school teacher in Seattle Public Schools when he was placed on administrative leave. Schmidt was under investigation for physically and verbally abusing children as the P.E. teacher at John Hay Elementary school on Queen Anne. The 2016 district investigation found that Schmidt “slapped, swatted or hit” a student’s hand down when she raised it to ask a question. In another incident, Schmidt, who is white, reportedly implied to a student that African-American children all look alike. The investigation found that on numerous occasions Schmidt had shamed children, made students cry, and yelled at both children and adults. Schmidt spoke to KUOW at length about the allegations. He denied shaming students, and saying that African-American children all look alike.

Credit: Seattle Public Schools personnel file

He said he does not remember yelling at staff or students, or making children cry, but said his memory is imperfect. Schmidt said he has a traumatic brain injury from a 2015 car accident that he said caused “crazy emotional outbursts.” Schmidt had started an application for medical leave because of his erratic behavior just days before the John Hay principal put him on administrative leave. “It worked out better in one sense, because I got paid on admin leave, and you’re not paid on medical leave,” Schmidt said. But he said it was unfair to discipline him for behavior related to a medical issue. After a district investigation found Schmidt had violated numerous district policies, he received a disciplinary warning. He signed an agreement with the district that allowed him to keep teaching because of evidence that the 2015 car accident impacted his teaching ability. “Through medical treatment he has significantly improved,” the settlement reads. But personnel files from Schmidt’s previous school district show problems dating back to 2006.

Before Schmidt worked in Seattle, he had a long tenure in Steilacoom Historical School District, near Tacoma. Records there show clashes between Schmidt and the principal of Chloe Clark Elementary School, where he worked for six years. In 2006, Schmidt was disciplined for announcing his intention to take Fridays off for the rest of the school year. In 2013, he reportedly refused to remove chairs he'd stacked outside the principal's office, told the principal to write him up, and walked off. Schmidt attributed those earlier incidents to working conditions at that school — and earlier head injuries that he said affected his behavior. Schmidt said he has sustained between eight and 10 major concussions over his lifetime. “You’re talking to a guy with a broken brain,” Schmidt said. No one in Seattle Public Schools spoke with that Steilacoom principal before hiring Schmidt one year later. The district requires that hiring managers complete three reference checks before hiring a teacher. (Footnote 2) “We should not be hiring any employee that we do not have reference checks for,” said Seattle Schools human resources chief Clover Codd. Principals in several districts told KUOW that it can be hard to reach a teacher’s past supervisors or colleagues. “You’re lucky if anyone calls you back,” said Chris Cronas, a former principal in Seattle Public Schools and now an educational consultant. “The biggest challenge is summertime,” Cronas said. “Nobody’s around to do a reference check. So you do the best you can with the information you’ve got.” Cronas said a shortage of highly-qualified educators adds to the problem. “Competition for really strong people is so great. The pool’s too small,” Cronas said. “There’s too many positions open. And we can’t fill positions fast enough,” he said. 3 Settlement agreements can hide abuse allegations. After Kevin Schmidt was found to have verbally and physically abused students at John Hay Elementary, the settlement agreement he signed with Seattle Public Schools kept him on paid administrative leave for the rest of the school year, and moved him out of that school. He was not in the displacement pool for long, however: Several months later, he was assigned to Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School in the Rainier Valley as a kindergarten teacher. In 2018, Schmidt was on administrative leave again: this time, for allegedly pushing and yelling at two girls in his class after one of the children rode a bicycle the wrong way.

Credit: Seattle Public Schools personnel file

According to witness statements from the children involved, Schmidt had already yelled at and pushed one girl on the bicycle when he started yelling at a second girl to leave the gym. In a written statement, a parent witness wrote that Schmidt “was yelling at the top of his lungs ‘GET OUT! GET OUT!’ while this child was screaming” for him to stop. Schmidt shoved the girl out of the room, the parent wrote. “She falls to the floor in a corner near the door crying, ‘I want my mommy,’” she wrote. “I was brought to tears when I witnessed this.” In Schmidt’s statement, he called Martin Luther King “an unsafe and hostile work environment.” In disciplinary paperwork, Schmidt also accused the two fifth-grade girls of “gang-like behavior” in the incident. After the district told Schmidt they planned to investigate the incident, he agreed to resign. He signed a second settlement agreement with Seattle Public Schools. The district agreed to pay Schmidt for the rest of the school year – five months — and to remove the latest incident from his personnel file. That meant future districts could not easily learn that he was accused of mistreating children for the second time in roughly two years. State law prohibits districts from entering into agreements that have “the effect of suppressing information about verbal or physical abuse or sexual misconduct by a present or former employee,” the law reads, if the misconduct has been substantiated. Seattle never substantiated the newest abuse allegations against Schmidt, because the district stopped investigating when he agreed to resign. “It sounds like the district may have followed the letter, but not the spirit of the law,” said education attorney Jinju Park. “Putting its head in the sand does not relieve it of its legal duty.” Under Schmidt’s deal with Seattle Public Schools, he was no longer allowed to work in the district. The top page of his personnel file now reads in giant type: “DO NOT REHIRE.”

Credit: Seattle Public Schools