Ex-Iowa teacher convicted of filming student in restroom allowed to volunteer at school

A former Iowa teacher who in 1998 secretly videotaped a high school athlete changing her clothes has been allowed to volunteer in an eastern Iowa school district and coach a spelling bee program that works with students.

Trent Yoder, now 47, pleaded guilty to exploitation of a minor for recording the student in a restroom at an Anita elementary school, where he was a teacher.

Mid-Prairie school officials say they are aware of Yoder's felony record, but they won't bar him from working with students.

A Cass County judge sentenced Yoder, then 28, to the maximum 10-year sentence and ordered him to register as a sex offender.

The prison sentence was later reduced to 1½ months, and he served four years of probation. Yoder was removed from Iowa's sex offender registry after 10 years.

Now, 20 years later, some of Yoder's former students are speaking out, saying he should not be allowed to volunteer with children.

"They’re putting other children in jeopardy,” said Katie Pollock, one of Yoder's former students. “It gives me a certain level of discomfort knowing that he’s back in the school system and knowing that people are OK with it.”

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Yoder has volunteered for Mid-Prairie schools since 2015. District officials granted him special permission despite his previous conviction.

The school district did not notify parents about Yoder's past or the decision to allow him to volunteer. Superintendent Mark Schneider said he did inform school principals that Yoder must be with another adult at all times.

Yoder, who has two children who attend junior high school in the district, has chaperoned elementary school field trips and built sets for the last four high school plays, Schneider said.

'It was a gut punch'

Yoder was convicted on a single charge of exploitation, but other former CAM of Anita students say they fear that he might have filmed them changing in the school bathroom.

On "several other occasions," Yoder asked female students, staff members and former students to try on sports bras in a bathroom at the Anita school, according to a 1999 Des Moines Register story, citing state documents.

Nicky Bauerkemper said she was pulled out of her fifth-grade class by Yoder and asked to change into a T-shirt in the bathroom. She was 10 years old at the time.

Police never found evidence that Bauerkemper was recorded, but she said her suspicions still affect her life. She looks around for a video camera before changing her clothes, she said.

Yoder worked at Anita Elementary School during the 1996-1997 and 1997-1998 school years, according to the state department of education.

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Bauerkemper became alarmed after seeing a photo of Yoder with his fifth-grade spelling club on a Kalona newspaper website.

"It was a gut punch because I was in fifth grade, and he pulled me out with spelling practice," she said.

She raised her concerns with members of the Mid-Prairie school board Monday. The district has schools in Kalona and Wellman.

During a closed session, Bauerkemper said she warned school officials and shared what happened to her and other students in the 1990s.

Bauerkemper said when she was in fifth grade in 1998, girls in the sixth-grade class were so unsettled by their teacher's insistence on hugging them — while boys received a high-five — they devised a plan to hug longer so others could run past.

Yoder and his supporters also spoke at the meeting, which was held to allow the school board to review the superintendent's decision to allow Yoder to volunteer.

Bauerkemper said she wanted to make sure Mid-Prairie students were aware of his past.

"We were just concerned about having it happen again," she said.

Bauerkemper said she asked Mid-Prairie to provide teachers with additional training in child-abuse prevention.

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In response to concerns raised by Yoder's former students, Mid-Prairie officials say they will continue to allow him to serve as a volunteer as long as there's another adult present, and only in his children's classrooms.

An independent spelling club he coaches will no longer be allowed to use the Mid-Prairie name or meet on school grounds "for the time being," Schneider said. The club currently meets at the local library.

'I hate that I have caused so much pain'

After his conviction, Yoder was ordered to surrender his teaching certificate, register as a sex offender, participate in sex offender treatment and abstain from coaching minors in athletics, according to a 1999 Register story.

He had to send letters of apology to the CAM School District, teachers, school board members and every parent of a volleyball player.

At his sentencing, an attorney for the victim said it was her family's wish that Yoder never teach or coach again.

"I did commit a crime and ultimately pled guilty and I was sentenced to 10 years in prison and sent to the Iowa medical classification center, where I was very thoroughly evaluated," Yoder told the Register this week. "Much of it was really humiliating."

“I hate that I have caused so much pain to that community,” he said, adding he would meet with anyone if it would help them heal.

Mid-Prairie schools initially rejected Yoder's application to volunteer in 2015 because of his felony conviction, but district officials later granted him special permission after receiving letters of support.

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Jerry Partridge, a former Washington County attorney, met Yoder after giving a talk about restorative justice at Yoder's former church.

He reviewed Yoder's case file and wrote a letter of recommendation with details of the case to the Mid-Prairie superintendent when Yoder appealed his request to volunteer in the school district.

In addition, Yoder submitted letters of support from the pastor of the East Union Mennonite Church in Kalona, where he attends and works with children, as well as a district court judge, although not the one who presided over his case, said Schneider, the Mid-Prairie superintendent.

"He's a father of two in the district," Schneider said. "He wanted me to reconsider. We laid out a process to go through."