In 2017, The Oregonian brought to light three decades of misconduct by former Portland Public Schools (PPS) teacher Mitchell Whitehurst. The first official complaint of sexual misconduct against Whitehurst was filed in 2001 by Rose Soto, a 17-year old student aide of Whitehurst’s at the time. PPS investigated the complaint, but never talked to Soto, concluding that “Soto could be confused and Whitehurst was fit to teach,” according to The Oregonian’s report.

Over the next 13 years, the district would dismiss at least five other sexual harassment allegations brought to their attention by students and adults at four different schools Whitehurst taught at. Principals, human resource (HR) directors and district lawyers informed of such complaints continually downplayed reports from the individuals and employees involved in the allegations. They didn’t attempt to corroborate student accounts and treated each incident as an isolated situation rather than a series of connected complaints.

According to The Oregonian’s report, it wasn’t until 2015, when a male colleague complained that Whitehurst mistreated him, that Whitehurst was terminated by PPS. An extensive independent PPS investigation following Whitehurst’s termination revealed that the educator had been involved in at least 11 incidents of misconduct between 1982 and 2015.

Following the Whitehurst investigation, several PPS school board members and former Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero released a joint statement vowing to do better. “We will implement and revise relevant policies and directives,” the report read. “We are inviting the Portland Association of Teachers to partner with us to review contract provisions that were shown to have interfered with detecting the misconduct.” (The Portland Association of Teachers, or PAT, is the union representing PPS educators.)

But what exactly is PPS’ policy for detecting teacher misconduct? And how does the PAT contract hinder it?

According to Grant High School Principal James McGee, if a student brings a complaint of misconduct to the administration it will be investigated. However, whether the investigation is conducted by the school administration or the PPS district office depends on the case.

Investigators will start by speaking with the student or students who raised the allegation, their family or families, the educator and anyone else who may have been involved in the incident and go from there, says McGee.

According to PPS’ contract with the PAT, the teacher may be put on paid administrative leave during the investigation in order to aid it in running smoothly or to protect the safety and security of others in the building.

When the investigation is completed, which may take several months, no information can be released regarding the conclusion. McGee says that because misconduct allegations are a “personnel issue,” the results of the investigation are not shared with students or families.

If the allegation violates a standard of the Teachers Standards and Practices Commission (TSPC), the state department that grants and revokes teacher licenses, the commission will conduct a separate investigation. Cristina Edgar, the director of professional practices at TSPC, says that districts are required to file a misconduct report if they have a reasonable belief that a violation of TSPC standards has occurred. However, if a district does not report to TSPC, it has free rein over a teacher’s future employment and potential discipline.

While this process is seemingly straightforward, students and families remain uncertain about it. In recent years, teachers across PPS have faced multiple allegations of misconduct yet continue to teach, raising questions about the system’s effectiveness and who it’s designed to protect. Grant is no exception.

On Nov. 29, 2016, Grant theater teacher Chris Lane was placed on administrative leave. He would not be removed from leave until nearly a year and a half later on April 18, 2018. Grant Magazine was not able to confirm the instance of misconduct that placed Lane on leave nor the reason for such an extended period of leave.

Lane told Grant Magazine that he was “wrongly dismissed” from his teaching position in April 2018 because of an incident “outside of (his) teaching duties” and subsequently reinstated through a labor arbitration. “I would like to keep the facts and circumstances of my termination and reinstatement private because they relate to family life as a parent,” Lane wrote.

Under Oregon’s Public Records Law and the PAT contract, records that are part of the grievance process, including labor arbitration orders, are exempt from disclosure to the public. As a result, Grant Magazine was not able to determine the details of Lane’s arbitration or the cause for his dismissal.

Roughly 19 months after he was removed from administrative leave, Mimi Bergmann approached Beaumont Middle School’s administration with concerns about him. Lane had started teaching at the middle school and was the teacher of her child’s after school theater program. A few days prior, her child, Winter Farley, had come home from school and told Bergmann about an unsettling experience they had with Lane.

“We were backstage and we were working on building a platform for the play. And (Lane) had this big piece of wood and he was either hammering or screwing nails into it. And I was holding the piece of wood for him. And he began like … humping or like, thrusting against it, I guess, and like, screaming my name,” Farley told Grant Magazine. “I did feel there were some sexual undertones.”

In a written statement to Grant Magazine, Lane disputed Farley’s account of the incident: “That was not a sexualized gesture. I was struggling to keep the heavy piece of scenery from falling and causing injury by bracing it against my hip and was calling out loudly to the student nearby for their help.” According to Bergmann, the Beaumont administration and a PPS investigator promptly conducted an investigation. Beaumont Principal Harriette Jackson-Vimegnon denied comment on Farley’s case specifically, citing legal restraints, and did not respond to a request for comment on the school’s policy for addressing teacher misconduct.

On Nov. 19, 2019, according to PPS records, Lane was placed on paid administrative leave once again. On April 17, 2020, he was removed from leave. In the 2021–2022 school year, he was reassigned to Grant. Farley was a sophomore at Grant that year.

According to Farley and Bergmann, they were never notified of the results of PPS’ investigation nor of Lane’s reassignment to Grant. When Bergmann found out Lane was teaching at Grant, she asked the Grant administration that Farley not be put in any of his classes due to their previous history. Bergmann was surprised to find that the administration was unaware of the incident.

Since returning to Grant, Lane has faced at least two more allegations of misconduct. In February 2023, a student reported that Lane touched him inappropriately on the back and shoulder multiple times. While such conduct is not considered sexual misconduct, as in the case alleged by Farley, it is constituted as a “boundary violation” — conduct with no legitimate educational purpose and having the potential to harm a student — and is advised against under PPS’ board policies. An investigation into this report did not result in discipline but in a meeting between Lane, Grant administration, an HR representative and a PAT representative on Feb. 23, 2023. According to meeting notes, Lane was directed to “Stop touching students period, for your own protection and to ensure a safe learning environment.”

Four students who had Lane as a teacher in the 2023–2024 school year reported that they have witnessed him repeatedly rub students’ backs and shoulders and get unnecessarily close to them.

Jaden Olivas-Prew, a freshman at Grant, reported that Lane repeatedly touched her in this way. “I don’t like being touched regardless. And it’s another thing if you’re a grown man and you’re rubbing my shoulders, and so I kind of just didn’t go to his class,” she says. “I would sit outside his class in the hallway and listen to him giving a lecture then do the assignment because that’s what I heard.”

In January 2024, Olivas-Prew brought her concerns to the counselors’ office. She reports attending a meeting with Grant Vice Principal Morgan Hallabrin and her counselor, where she told them her experiences. Olivas-Prew was transferred out of Lane’s class and asked to give a written statement of her account. At least two other students also gave written statements alleging similar misconduct.

A public records request for investigations of Lane that did not result in discipline from December 2023 to February 2024 returned no results. However, under Oregon’s Public Records Law, if a recent investigation into Lane did result in disciplinary action, or is underway, such records are exempt from disclosure to the public. HR director Sharon Reese did not respond to two requests for comment.

Lane is not the only teacher who has faced multiple allegations of misconduct and remained in the classroom. During her time teaching at Ainsworth Elementary School, Renee Espinoza received numerous complaints from students and parents regarding alleged verbal abuse and misconduct according to PPS investigation files.

During the 2011–2012 school year, a former student, who asked to remain anonymous, developed gastroesophageal reflux disease that she attributed to the anxiety Espinoza’s fourth grade class brought: “I was always a student that loved school … And then I remember slowly over time, in fourth grade, dreading going and it got to a point where I was having stomach issues.” The student recalls Espinoza singling her out in class and telling her that her work wasn’t good enough.

The following school year, Espinoza was transferred from fourth grade to kindergarten. Grant Magazine was unable to confirm the reason behind her move. Despite Espinoza’s removal from the classroom, the student does not believe the situation was handled well: “She was moved only from fourth grade to kindergarten, which I think made it even worse because kindergarteners have less of a voice than a fourth grader,” she says.

Later that year, Espinoza reportedly told a student to “take a break” and walk alone to a neighboring classroom after yelling at the student for looking away from her twice during circle time. Instead, the student hid in the bathroom for an hour to 90 minutes, remaining unaccounted for for nearly one-third of the school day, according to Ann Foster, the student’s mother. “They are in charge of her. And not a single person knew where she was,” says Foster.

That afternoon, Espinoza reportedly sent the student home with a note addressed to her parents informing them of their daughter’s absence. At the end of the letter she wrote that the student “‘isn’t doing well in any of her subjects. She’s just failing in everything,’” says Foster. “It was a huge red flag for us. It kind of explained why (my child) was slowly sort of falling apart.” However, Espinoza claimed her intent with the letter was to inform the student’s parents of what had happened that day and “just including, not that she was failing, I mean, it’s kindergarten, just that she was having trouble with some areas. So I kind of wanted to put them all together just so we could have a conversation about it,” she says.

Regardless, Foster was furious. She emailed Espinoza and Cindy Roby, Ainsworth’s principal at the time, requesting a meeting with them both. According to Foster, she said during the meeting, “You didn’t know where my child was, and you didn’t tell anybody where my child was, and you didn’t follow any of the progressive discipline … This is your fault. This was your decision. You failed to follow any of the rules that you put in place for safety.”

The meeting was followed up with an in-class observation by Roby, where she allegedly picked up on behaviors similar to those Espinoza had witnessed. “She noticed the same thing where the student was having trouble paying attention in the classroom,” says Espinoza.

Around this time, Foster began airing her concerns to other parents and learned that similar things had allegedly happened to five other students. “Ms. Espinoza had just really messed with these kids for no good reason. Like, yelled at them and made these weird demands that made no sense,” says Foster.

Espinoza denies the allegations of verbal abuse: “I don’t recall any times where I was verbally abusive towards children and nothing that was ever brought to my attention in those first three years until the investigation started,” she told Grant Magazine.

“I felt very blindsided by a lot of the complaints, especially ones that were from when I was teaching fourth grade,” Espinoza says. “If (people with complaints) came to my principal, my principal never came to me about it. So it felt very awkward and uncomfortable to be told these things when I had absolutely no idea.”

Foster made a formal complaint later that year and was unsatisfied with the lack of response it garnered: “The district did close to nothing. They appointed somebody (to investigate), and then they did close to nothing … It’s not like they interviewed or asked me anything about what happened — about 90 minutes of losing my child.”

Espinoza left Ainsworth the following year, a decision she says was entirely her own, and resumed her teaching career at Astor School. “I could have stayed but I knew that I would not be happy,” she says.

While Espinoza has continued to teach, one of her former students, who wishes to remain anonymous, believes she is not fit to do so: “Not wanting to go to school and crying every day is not normal … I don’t think that she should be allowed to teach at all.”

At Cleveland High School, multiple students and parents reported complaints regarding the competency of algebra teacher David Trotter. Investigation files from January 2023 revealed that Trotter would leave the class for extended periods of time, insufficiently teach course material and make inappropriate comments toward students. One student reported that Trotter projected all the students’ grades on the board and “many students had grades below 50%.” According to investigation records, student and parent complaints indicated Trotter violated several of PPS’ standards for professional educators. However, the investigation did not result in discipline and Trotter is still on Cleveland’s staff directory and retains his teaching license. Trotter did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The aforementioned incidents have led students and families to question the efficacy and lack of transparency regarding the PPS policy for addressing alleged misconduct.

Bergmann says that the lack of information and lack of victim support provided to Farley following their experience with Lane led her to question the validity of the investigation. “I would really like to find out what Portland Public Schools’ standards on sexual harassment and sexual abuse from adult to a child (are) because (such behavior) seems to be okay, from the actions that were taken,” she says.

Farley echoes their mother’s dissatisfaction: “I feel as though it could have been handled in a better way. I feel as though the reaction I got when I brought it up to administration was a little dismissive or it felt a little dismissive.” Farley feels as though, especially with teachers who have had multiple accusations against them, the district should “actually follow up with these students about the situation (and) try to be more involved in protecting their students.”

Another PPS parent interviewed felt that the district protects the teachers rather than the students. One parent, who asked to remain anonymous, said that when she attempted to raise concerns of teacher misconduct to administrators she felt “the initial comment … that I should have heard was, ‘Oh my gosh, I am sorry for this situation’ — or however you wanted to acknowledge it — and taking responsibility just for the topic at hand.” Instead, “the first thing was protecting the teacher. I mean, that’s the opposite of accountability.”

Some parents have expressed a fear of coming forward. An anonymous PPS parent said that she feared bringing her complaint farther up in the district because she was worried her child would become a target. Foster expressed similar concerns: “It was a way to discourage complaints, to discourage anything written ever going into these people’s files, by simply suggesting that the kid would be treated differently because of the complaint.”

Communications between Cleveland’s principal and HR personnel released to Grant Magazine also indicate that a number of students who had given oral complaints regarding Trotter to the school’s administration were “reticent” to make formal written statements. In the February 2023 investigation of Lane, documents indicate that the administration had difficulty following up with the student who made the initial complaint. Whether it is out of fear of coming forward or simply an unwillingness to cooperate, reticence on the part of students makes it challenging for administrators to corroborate and detect misconduct.

For those who would like to uncover the truth about such allegations, a public records request can be filed. However, a multitude of barriers make it difficult and time-consuming for petitioners to obtain the desired documents.

Due to Oregon’s Public Records Law and the PAT contract, an investigation that results in any form of discipline, whether that be a letter of reprimand or a loss of license, is exempt from disclosure. Additionally, exorbitant fees — ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars — may be required to collect emails and documents that could help students and their families gather more information.

Grant Magazine also received an anonymous tip from a district personnel alleging four teachers had been fired by PPS due to inappropriate conduct towards students and subsequently reinstated through private arbitration.

Under the PAT contract, teachers have the right to appeal their termination through private or public arbitration. If a private arbitrator or the Oregon Fair Dismissals and Appeals Board decides to reinstate a teacher, it is out of the district’s control. If the teacher decides to appeal through private arbitration, the arbitration order is exempt from disclosure under the PAT contract and Oregon’s Public Records Law. This means that students and their families have no way of knowing why a fired teacher was reinstated.

However, in the process of attempting to obtain the arbitration records of the aforementioned teachers, Grant Magazine determined that four arbitration orders for the four teachers did exist. One of the four orders is regarding Lane’s termination (as he confirmed in his comment to Grant Magazine) but whether the three other orders are with respect to the termination of an educator can not be determined. Nonetheless, a teacher’s right to arbitrate is yet another obstacle that complicates removing problematic teachers from the classroom.

]Though it’s difficult to balance the rights of teachers with the safety of students, PPS’ historical reluctance to reprimand their educators combined with systematic protections for teachers has continually placed students in classrooms where they do not feel comfortable.