LL1885

Dear Readers,

Since 2016, I’ve tracked arrests of North Carolina K-12 education employees. I’ve called that reporting the “Quiet Epidemic,” and I’ve brought it to an end as of December 2024.

Part of the reason is I can no longer keep up with this work. I am also burned out mentally on covering this subject.

Having said that, I’ll be looking at the data I’ve amassed over the last eight years to see what story it has to tell.  Any useful insights that data may have will be shared on my Substack, More To The Story.

I appreciate the support this work has seen and am thankful to everyone who sent me information and tips.  With your help, this work did help to yield some significant changes in K-12 education policy and state law.

For example, in 2017, laws were changed regarding resignations in K-12 under §115C‑325.9. This was a change I advocated for with lawmakers in an attempt to address a practice known as “pass the trash,” whereby a teacher is allowed to resign instead of being fired and that individual is then either shuffled to a different school or a different district.

Under this statute, if a teacher resigns after being recommended for dismissal (without superintendent agreement), the superintendent must report this to the State Board of Education (SBE), and the teacher automatically consents to having the dismissal recommendation in their file and shared with future employers When this happens, the teacher’s license is temporarily surrendered for up to 45 days while the SBE investigates. The SBE must start investigating within 5 working days and make a final decision about license revocation within 45 days.

For teachers not facing dismissal, they must give 30 days’ notice before resigning during their contract term, unless the superintendent agrees otherwise. If they don’t provide this notice, the board can request their license be revoked for the remainder of the school year.

If a teacher’s resignation is related to their criminal history, the board must report the reason to the SBE, regardless of whether proper notice was given.

Another example is SL 2023-128, the Protect Our Students Act (HB 142). This was an agency bill run by former State Superintendent Catherine Truitt that raises the criminal penalties on teachers who sexually abuse students, among a host of other things.

In my work reporting on education for North State Journal, I crossed paths with Truitt a few times while she was campaigning in 2020 and at some point the topic of teacher arrests came up. After she was elected, Truitt took up the issue with lawmakers and HB 142 was filed. That bill passed the Senate unanimously and passed the House 106-1. The lone “no” came from Rep. Allison Dahle (D-Wake).

Under this law, the penalty for sexual activity with a student and taking indecent liberties with a student went from a Class I to a Class G felony. The portion of the law went into effect Dec. 1, 2023. (Class I felony sentence  = 3 to 12 months versus Class G felony sentence = 8 to 31 months).

Those convicted under this law can also have their state pension stripped, and education officials failing to report sexual misconduct of an employee can face a Class I felony charge.

The law also called for  the Center for Safer Schools to create an age-appropriate video on child abuse, sex abuse and neglect which was to be shown to students in grades six through 12 beginning in June 2024.

Again, I thank all my readers for following along on this journey with me. Here is some parting data before the data is cleaned up and analyzed:

• Between 2016 and 2024, this site covered 456 education employee arrests.
• 427 of those arrests were public school teachers or employees; 30 were private school teachers or employees.
• 260 of the arrests were teachers with an active teaching license in NC, while 152 had no license.
• 306 were males, 151 were females.
• At least 320 (over 70%) of the arrests involved sex crimes.