Heightened scrutiny of abuse allegations in the Chicago Public Schools has prompted significant changes and disciplinary actions at Hubbard High School, which was spotlighted by the Tribune in its “Betrayed” series for inaction when girls reported sexual misconduct by a school employee.
The school’s principal retired while the district was auditing her “practices and protocols for responding to alleged sexual misconduct,” the district said in a statement to the Tribune. And, earlier this year, that former principal was put on a do-not-hire list by CPS.
CPS also ordered special training for school employees to make sure they have “the strongest possible understanding” of how to protect students.
As part of a districtwide effort to review previous allegations of assault and abuse, CPS has investigated several current and former Hubbard teachers, moving to fire four of them. Among these cases:
CPS filed dismissal charges against teacher Brenda Cerda on April 22 over allegations that she had sex with a student between 2006 and 2008 while teaching math at Hubbard. She later married that student and had children with him, the district said. The former student has denied having an inappropriate relationship with Cerda while at Hubbard, according to the district. Since the time of the alleged abuse, Cerda became the math department chair at Social Justice High School in Lawndale. She is suspended without pay.
A math teacher at Hubbard, Scott Centeno, resigned April 11 after being summoned by district officials to an investigatory conference. He allegedly had a sexual relationship with a Hubbard student beginning as early as 2015 and lasting through last year, the district said. The alleged victim denied that such a relationship occurred, the district said.
This month, CPS moved to fire former Hubbard teacher Alfredo Contreras over two older cases against him — one related to making an inappropriate comment to a student in 2015 and another from a 1998 allegation that CPS concluded at the time was “unfounded.” While investigating the 2015 case, the district learned that the state Department of Children and Family Services “made an indicated finding” in the same 1998 case against Contreras “for sexual misconduct with a student outside of school,” according to the district. Contreras most recently was teaching math at Kennedy High School. Efforts to reach Contreras, who is suspended without pay, were unsuccessful, and DCFS would not confirm the 1998 investigation.
Also this month, CPS sought the dismissal of Robert Sheldon, who taught English at Hubbard until he was removed in January over accusations he made “inappropriate comments of a sexual and discriminatory nature to students,” the district said. Sheldon told the Tribune that he had been “unjustly accused” and he was surprised the district took what he felt was drastic action against him. “They’re making a mighty mountain out of a molehill,” he said. He is suspended without pay.
And Walter Glascoff, who was a Hubbard English teacher, resigned in December after district investigators found evidence that he had a sexual relationship with a student during her time at Hubbard and after graduation. In an interview with a district investigator, Glascoff said he had taken the student on dates to Navy Pier, Chinatown and Greektown and considered her his girlfriend, according to the CPS investigative report. The district moved to fire him at the end of November.
The allegations against Cerda had been investigated previously, in 2013, but the inquiry ended when the district determined it couldn’t confirm that the sexual relationship began while the alleged victim was still enrolled as a CPS student.
That investigation is among the old sex-abuse cases being revisited by CPS’ Office of Inspector General as part of a “comprehensive review” announced after the publication of the Tribune’s investigative findings in June 2018, the district said. The district wants to know if the case was “handled properly” in 2013.
Both Cerda and Centeno did not respond to Tribune requests for comment. Glascoff declined to comment when contacted by the Tribune.
In March, Glascoff’s former student sued the district, saying CPS failed “to provide an environment free from sexual abuse” when the relationship occurred, about 15 years ago. The lawsuit says some Hubbard staff members were aware of what was happening but did not intervene.
The suit accuses the Chicago Board of Education of inflicting emotional distress by failing to report the alleged grooming and abuse to child-welfare authorities and by continuing to employ Glascoff “despite its knowledge of sexual abuse” of the student.
“I’m the age now that he was when he started grooming me and abusing me,” the woman, now 33, told the Tribune. “I could never imagine doing this to a child. I can’t imagine why they didn’t help me.”
The woman’s suit joins three ongoing civil suits filed by students who say the district failed to protect them from sexual abuse between 2010 and 2014 by former Hubbard security guard Walter C.J. Wells, whose abuse and subsequent criminal conviction were featured in the “Betrayed” series. All of the plaintiffs have described a school in which inappropriate behavior with students was entrenched.
Just before school started in the fall, Chicago Public Schools sent child-welfare experts from the Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center to Hubbard to provide extra training and support, the district said. It was one of six CPS schools to be targeted for more training beyond the standard “Protecting Chicago’s Children” training that all schools received.The other schools to receive extra training were Bogan, Simeon, Ray Graham, Goode and Morgan Park high schools, the district said, and were chosen in part “based on past incidents.”
There also have been meetings and professional development at the school “to ensure all staff are in alignment regarding efforts to protect and support students,” according to a district statement.
CPS said that throughout the district it “has prioritized carrying out thorough investigations into all of these concerning allegations, and we are committed to holding accountable anyone who is found to have harmed or failed to protect students.”
One focus of investigators was former Principal Nancy Wiley, a Hubbard graduate who had been an educator for 30 years.
CPS investigators found that in the misconduct case of a security guard last year, and again in the case of teacher Glascoff, Wiley failed to properly report abuse allegations, according to investigative records. She retired at the end of September.
The district later placed her on its “do not hire” list, declaring in a letter to Wiley that she would not be allowed even to volunteer at any CPS school or event. Wiley told the Tribune that she didn’t know about the “do not hire” designation and said: “I would never put any of my students in danger; they were my priority.”
The lawsuit by Glascoff’s former student alleges that Hubbard’s principal at the time, Andrew Manno, was alerted twice that Glascoff might be having sexual relationships with students but did not alert child-welfare authorities or investigate. The Tribune’s efforts to reach Manno for comment were unsuccessful.
The suit also states that, in October 2003, a teacher at Hubbard snapped a photo of Glascoff and the student for the yearbook after Glascoff instructed the student to wear a “couples” homecoming costume. They dressed as characters from the movie “The Matrix,” she said in an interview.
That teacher then asked Glascoff if he was “in a relationship” with the girl, the lawsuit states.
The woman alleges in her suit that Glascoff had the student skip her art class to sit in on his journalism class, had her meet him in the staff parking lot after school, drove her in his car and even took her to his high school reunion at Homewood-Flossmoor.
“Part of the abuse was he was public about it,” the woman said. “I remember feeling at the time there was nothing I could do and nobody would help me.”
Glascoff’s former student is listed as Jane Doe in the suit, and the Tribune does not typically name victims of alleged sexual abuse without their consent.
“This board of education failed students at Hubbard and they should be held accountable,” said the woman’s lawyer, Carolyn Daley Scott. “We hope this never happens to another student in the future and the teachers and administrators will protect students in schools rather than protect teachers.”
The woman said Glascoff had sexual contact with her in his car, at his home, on a college orientation trip and at his cabin in Wisconsin.
“He started having me sneak out of my house. He told me he thought of me as his girlfriend. I felt I had no say in it. He was my teacher,” she told the Tribune.
Glascoff initially told CPS investigators that he had sexual intercourse with the student before she graduated. “Mr. Glascoff stated that he and (the student) always engaged in sexual intercourse at his home … usually after school. Mr. Glascoff denied that he and (the student) had ever engaged in sexual intercourse during school hours,” the investigative report said.
He later “recanted” and told investigators he meant he had oral sex with the girl while she was a student, according to the CPS investigative report. He said he had failed to clarify the nature of his physical relationship with the girl in the earlier interview “because you didn’t ask me,” the report said.
After she graduated, the student went to college and later moved in with Glascoff for a time. She said she eventually ended the relationship and was 25 when she cut off contact with her former teacher.
Last year, she told a health professional about what happened, she said. That person, a mandated reporter of child abuse under Illinois law, alerted child-welfare authorities, she said, who in turn visited the school to investigate. That triggered CPS’ internal investigation and findings against Glascoff, according to the CPS investigative report.
“I feel like I’ve spent so much time not being believed and not being taken seriously,” the woman said. “I want them to stop doing this to students and stop letting this happen.”
jrichards@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @jsmithrichards
