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A culture of rampant sexual misconduct at a Little Village high school complex went far beyond the case of a former dean sentenced to 22 years in prison last year, according to the annual report by Chicago Public Schools’ watchdog.
In December, the school board approved a record $17.5 million settlement to a former student abused by Brian Crowder, the former dean at Greater Lawndale High School for Social Justice, who was convicted of aggravated criminal sexual assault and other charges. But the report by the CPS Office of the Inspector General released Wednesday said seven other former teachers, administrators, and staff at that school and at one of three campuses sharing a building with it also engaged in inappropriate behavior toward students and recent graduates during the 2010s. These issues were first reported by NBC5 Chicago last year, which identified the second school as Infinity Math, Science, and Technology High School and named two educators involved.
The watchdog report, which was pending at the time, has since found employees groomed students for sexual relationships in person and via social media, and sometimes pursued them as soon as they graduated. One teacher, who also ran a legal aid clinic on the shared campus, presented himself as a protector of girls and women — only to make overtures to numerous former students months after they graduated and have sex with at least four of them, the watchdog found.
According to the report, these issues were so widespread that staff at the inspector general’s office spoke with one former student who had faced advances from three teachers: one during her junior year, one in her senior year, and one soon after she graduated.
“Our investigations revealed a culture at the time where professional boundaries between staff members and students were blurred,” said Philip Wagenknecht, the inspector general. “It was not unusual for staff to message students on social media, gossip with them, and treat them like friends rather than students. This could have been seen as normal and may have made it easier for bad actors to go unnoticed.”
In response to the investigation’s findings, the district extended its existing prohibition on social media and other nonacademic interactions with students to include former students during the year after they graduate or leave a school. The district also provided additional training to all staff at Little Village Lawndale High School campus.
All of the investigated employees had either already left the district or resigned amid the inquiries. The district placed a ban on rehiring them in their personnel files and — for those licensed by the state of Illinois — reported them to the state.
In a statement, the district said it is “committed to preventing, identifying, and responding to any form of abuse, misconduct, or exploitation within the community” and provides ongoing training to all employees and vendors on preventing and reporting misconduct.
The cases at these two schools were among 335 the inspector general’s Sexual Allegations Unit closed in fiscal year 2025, issuing 55 reports substantiating misconduct. The unit also opened 246 new cases during that year.
The bulk of the misconduct at Little Village Lawndale described in the report took place before 2018, when CPS tightened its rules and oversight following a 2018 Chicago Tribune series on unchecked sexual abuse in the district; those changes included the ban on social media contact with students and the launch of the sexual allegations unit. In some cases, former students interviewed by the office spoke up about troubling experiences with teachers and staff that classmates had shared with them years ago.
“The victims and witnesses who made the initial reports or who agreed to participate in the resulting investigations exhibited enormous bravery and potentially prevented more students from being victimized,” the report said.
According to the report, Crowder started grooming the student when she was a sophomore at the school and started having sex with her when she was 15 or 16. He posed as her stepfather to help her obtain two abortions, the report noted. It also said Crowder and the student continued having sex after she graduated. She went to the police when the former dean sent her threatening messages about a new relationship she had started.
The watchdog also found that a former teacher and coach at Greater Lawndale High School for Social Justice school groomed a 17-year-old student, exchanged more than 18,000 text messages with her, and kissed her, though the former student declined to say whether they had other physical contact. The Illinois grooming law only applies to children aged 16 or younger, and the watchdog could not find evidence of a criminal offense.
At Infinity High School, a teacher styled himself as a champion of female students, spoke about rescuing girls from abusive relationships, and launched a legal clinic at the school, leading some students to confide in him about past sexual trauma and other issues, according to the report. But shortly after more than a dozen students graduated, he reached out to them on social media, the watchdog found. His messages quickly turned flirtatious and sexual, including describing his sexual preferences and sending nude photos, the report said.
The watchdog’s report said the teacher had sex with at least four recent graduates. Watchdog staff found evidence that he flirted with at least one of the recent graduates while she was still a student. He told watchdog staff that he believed the encounters were “entirely appropriate” because the district had never told him not to pursue them. He was suspended and eventually resigned during the investigation and shut down his legal clinic.
Some of the former students filed police reports against the teacher, but the Chicago Police Department ultimately found that his behavior was not criminal.
Watchdog staff also found an administrator at that school pursued and had sex with a former student shortly after graduation, even though her parent had confided in him that she was vulnerable. Several former students also complained to the watchdog about flirtatious and other inappropriate behavior while they were still at the school. Watchdog staff found multiple employees at the school had learned of concerns about the administrator but failed to report them.
That former administrator also resigned from CPS during the investigation and got a job at another Illinois district, falsely certifying that he had never been the focus of a sexual misconduct inquiry, according to the report.
The inspector general’s reports do not customarily identify employees who engage in misconduct or the schools where they work.
The report says misconduct at the two schools peaked in 2015 and 2016, saying “a general lack of boundaries” on campus enabled the abuse. One of the former employees who was investigated told watchdog staff that this permissive culture meant he “found himself engaging with students like a peer or a friend rather than an authority figure.”
Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.
