There were repeated red flags.

Bath County Middle School teacher Darvin Andy Crouch seemed to be spending a lot of time with a then 13-year-old seventh grade female student.

A student told a school counselor she was concerned about the closeness of the relationship.

Family members found a note the victim had written Crouch and approached the school and asked for an investigation.

“School girl crush,” administrators told the girl’s family, according to court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Eastern Kentucky.

The family persisted: Could the girl be moved to a different social studies teacher?

There wasn’t any other social studies teacher for the girl’s grade, school officials said. No investigation by school officials was completed, federal court documents allege. The girl was moved to a conference room where she completed studies out of a work book and “suffered humiliation and embarrassment of sitting in the hallway alone during social studies while her perpetrator was permitted to continue teaching inside the classroom,” the lawsuit alleges.

“They never did anything,” said the victim. “They heard about it multiple times. They need to listen to students.”

The Lexington Herald-Leader does not name victims of sexual abuse.

Both criminal and civil court documents show the girl and Crouch were meeting secretly and were in a physical relationship. A family member taped conversations between the girl and Crouch in a car, where Crouch confessed he wanted to be with the girl when she turned 18. The family turned the recording over to Kentucky State Police. Crouch was charged with eight counts of sexual abuse first degree, two counts of sodomy third degree and two counts of rape third degree, according to criminal and civil court documents.

He was sentenced to five years in prison in 2017 after pleading to multiple counts of sexual abuse first degree, court records show.

The civil lawsuit alleging Bath County School officials failed to protect the girl was settled in September 2021 for $100,000, court documents show.

Crouch did not return calls or a letter from his lawyers asking for comment. Multiple calls to Bath County school attorneys and its current superintendent were not returned.

Crouch’s story is all too common.

A Herald-Leader review of 194 teachers whose teaching license was voluntarily surrendered, suspended or revoked by the Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board from 2016 to 2021 show the vast majority — 61% — trace back to sexual misconduct.

But Crouch’s case is unique. He’s one of the few teachers accused of sexual misconduct who spent more than a year in prison.

The newspaper’s review of the criminal prosecution of the 118 teachers who lost or had their licenses suspended for sexual misconduct shows few serve more than a year in jail.

Of the 118 teachers accused of sexual misconduct who were disciplined by the professional standards board:

• 44 were never prosecuted.
• 37 had the charges dismissed, got probation or served less than a year in jail, records show.
• Four got more than 10 years. In those cases, the teacher or administrator was charged in federal court.

The Herald-Leader examined thousands of pages of documents related to teacher license revocations and interviewed dozens of people over 12 months.

The newspaper found:

• Kentucky has some of the weakest laws in the country regarding educator sexual misconduct. Thirty-five states and the District of Columbia require teachers have specific training on sexual abuse. Kentucky does not.
• Not all teachers in Kentucky are subject to discipline by the Education Professional Standards Board, which has the authority to revoke teachers’ licenses. Private school teachers are not required in Kentucky to be certified teachers. However, many private school teachers are.
• Not all teachers accused of sexual misconduct have their licenses yanked. Some only have those certifications suspended and are allowed to re-apply. That means some teachers who have had questionable relationships with children can return to the profession.

Kentucky Education Commissioner Jason Glass said more can be done to root out and stop sexual misconduct involving teachers. Yet, Glass said the number of teachers who have been disciplined for sexual misconduct is few compared to the number of teachers overseen by the EPSB. There were 42,525 certified teachers in Kentucky as of the 2020-2021 school year, according to state officials.

“I do think it is important to note that it is a small percentage of educators who have cases brought before the Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board. Of those cases, it is a small percentage that involve sexual misconduct with a student,”Glass said.

Glass said he would support more training and more disclosure of past misconduct, to a point.

“Any confirmed educator abuse of a student, especially those involving sexual misconduct, is a professional and moral breach of trust which should result in the loss of an educator’s job, license to practice teaching and criminal consequences,” Glass said. “I would support the sharing of teacher disciplinary actions where an issue was investigated and confirmed and some action was taken. I would not support the sharing of merely being the subject of an investigation.”

Sexual abuse, beyond the classroom

Advocates and those who work with victims of sexual abuse say child sexual abuse is much broader and far reaching than educator misconduct.

Some statistics show one in nine girls and one in 53 boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18.

Studies also show it is one of the most under-reported types of abuse.

Of those that are reported, 90% of the perpetrators are someone the child knows — family members, a family friend, a coach, church leaders, a leader in a youth organization and teachers.

Multiple organizations have been rocked by sexual abuse scandals over the past two decades, said Laura Kretzer, director of strategic initiatives and programming for the Children’s Advocacy Centers of Kentucky, which oversees 15 child advocacy centers in the commonwealth.

Organizations that have failed to address sexual abuse of kids and teens in recent years include U.S. Gymnastics, the Boy Scouts of America, the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention.

Nema Brewer, co-founder of KY 120 United-AFT, a school employee group, said stopping sexual abuse in the classroom and in Kentucky is everyone’s job.

“This is not something that is exclusive to public schools. Anywhere kids are, you’re gonna find predators, in the church and Boy Scouts and just about anywhere kids are, you’re gonna find people who try to abuse them in some way,” Brewer said. “This is not just the public school employee issue and again, our public schools are microcosms of our community.”

Brewer said her group’s members are willing to work with any group that is going to effectively address adult sexual misconduct by educators in schools.

She hopes that state licensing investigations follow the letter of the law and that people have been given due process.

In addition, Brewer said, “I also hope that the folks who get convicted of such a crime and are guilty of that crime, I hope they serve their time. And they’re given the highest punishment. We can’t keep doing this to kids. It’s disgusting.”

But Brewer doesn’t want teacher sexual misconduct politicized so that members of the LGBTQ community and others are unfairly portrayed as groomers, a frequent talking point of right-leaning politicians.

“My biggest fear is it’s gonna be politicized against the profession and against individuals who maybe don’t fit into the mold that people think they should fit into,” she said.

“I would hope that any talk would include teacher voices and public school employee voices to make sure that we don’t do that,” Brewer said.

Kretzer said teachers are also the state’s most consistent reporters of abuse.

“It can happen in any profession,” Kretzer said. “The vast majority of our teachers are wonderful and make a huge impact in the lives of students. They are the number one reporters of abuse and neglect. The safest place for any child is at school. We want it to be a safe place for all kids.”

Fayette County Commonwealth Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn agreed.

“If kids aren’t safe at school, where can they be safe?” said Red Corn, who has decades of experience prosecuting child sexual abuse cases. “It’s alarming.” Red Corn has announced she will retire at the end of September after serving more than 35 years.

Sex with students but no charges

Administrators in Knott County schools first became suspicious that something wasn’t right when Christina Gibson, a teacher at Cordia School, was seen leaving school property with a student in the middle of the day in February 2017.

When school officials questioned Gibson, she admitted she had taken the male student to get money. She also admitted she had taken the student out to eat on multiple occasions, according to Education Professional Standards Board records.

She was suspended for 10 days while the school conducted an investigation. School officials found nude photos had been sent of Gibson by students. One student, in a written letter included in Gibson’s EPSB file, said he had sex with Gibson after she came to pick him up outside of school grounds.

In exchange, the student said they went to Hazard and he met with his drug dealer where they purchased marijuana, according to the Education Professional Standards Board file.

Gibson resigned March 24, 2017. Her license was permanently revoked in April 2018.

Gibson failed to respond to the EPSB about the investigation into her misconduct, records show. Letters from the state board about her revocation were not returned, documents in Gibson’s file show.

Calls to a phone number listed for Gibson in 2017 were not returned. A current address for Gibson could not be located.

Gibson is one of 44 teachers who were accused of sexual misconduct who were never charged, according to a Herald-Leader review of 118 teachers who were disciplined for sexual misconduct over a five year time period.

Kimberly King, who was superintendent of Knott County Schools at the time and reported the abuse to the professional standards board, died in 2021. Timothy Crawford, the Knott County school board attorney, said his records indicated Gibson resigned but he does not know if the case was turned over to law enforcement.

Multiple calls and an email to the commonwealth attorney for Knott County were not returned.

However, when there is a pending criminal case, EPSB puts that information in a teacher’s file. No such documents were in Gibson’s file.

It’s possible the case was not prosecuted because the student told Gibson he was 18, documents obtained by the Herald-Leader show. Documents included in Gibson’s file do not say how old the student was at the time.

The age of consent in Kentucky is 16. However, Kentucky law includes language that a person in a “position of authority” or “position of special trust” can be prosecuted for various sex crimes if the minor is under the age of 18.

Teachers can be prosecuted under the law if the student is over the age of 16.

The Herald-Leader found at least two other cases where criminal charges were not pursued because the student was over the age of 18.

Not all of the 44 teachers whose case was not prosecuted involved students. Some had inappropriate relationships or were accused of sexual harassment of adults — other teachers, school employees and in rare cases parents of students.

Some also involved cases where the teacher was repeatedly texting or communicating with a student over social media but the teacher and the student did not appear to have a physical relationship, a review of case files show.

Other cases where teachers were accused of sexual misconduct but no criminal case was found include:

Mark Jeremy Emerson, a teacher at Oakdale Christian Academy in Breathitt County, was accused of having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old female student in August 2017. Emerson quit. Oakdale sent the information to the professional standards board. Emerson’s teaching license was revoked in late 2018. Oakdale’s internal investigation of Emerson was more than a dozen pages long and exhaustive; more than a half dozen school employees and students were interviewed.

“Emerson maintains his innocence and denies the allegations against him,” according to documents related to Emerson’s teaching certification revocation.

The school contacted Kentucky State Police and prosecutors, according to a memo included in Emerson’s education professional standards file. Repeated calls from the Herald-Leader to more than one phone number possibly connected to Emerson were not returned.

Former Commonwealth Attorney Darrell Herald said he left office in 2018 and said he could not remember why a criminal case involving Emerson did not move forward.

Herald said in cases involving minors, it’s possible the case did not move forward because the victim or the victim’s family opted not to pursue a criminal charge. “Now that’s just supposition. As a policy, we always pursued those types of cases,” Herald said.

Other cases that did not always result in criminal prosecution included teachers who repeatedly communicated with students outside of the classroom.

Matthew Humphress sent a female student thousands of explicit texts over a two-year period while he was a teacher and coach in the Taylor County school system, according to EPSB files. Those texts included illicit and inappropriate questions about the student’s sex life. The girl’s parent found the texts and turned the messages over to law enforcement and school officials, according to records in Humphress’ file.

Humphress resigned and his license was suspended for 20 years, according to professional standard board documents. Humphress, through his lawyer, declined to comment.

Taylor County Attorney John Bertram declined to comment on why a criminal case against Humphress did not move forward.

Reluctant witnesses, stature of teachers lead to fewer prosecutions

In general, child sexual abuse cases have low rates of prosecution, according to at least one study and interviews with those involved in child sexual abuse investigations.

A February 2019 study from the University of Massachusetts Lowell looked at 500 child abuse cases that were referred to prosecution in one state over five years. It found one in five, or 20%, were forwarded for prosecution. Of those cases that were prosecuted — 89 cases — only half resulted in a conviction or guilty plea. Of those, 36% were negotiated via a plea. Only 11% went to trial.

The lack of physical evidence is a key barrier in pursuing many sexual abuse cases, not just those that involve teachers, said Red Corn.

Another problem is the reluctance of child victims to testify. Some do not want the adult to get in trouble, said Winn Stephens, executive director of the Children’s Advocacy Center of the Bluegrass, which conducts forensic interviews of children who have been abused and neglected in 17 Central Kentucky counties.

“In absence of a witness or physical evidence, it becomes a he said-she said thing,” Stephens said.

Perpetrators often use manipulation and other grooming behaviors that make it difficult for kids to see power imbalances and understand that what happened to them is wrong.

“I don’t want to get the person in trouble.”

“I love them.”

Those are common reasons why child and teen victims don’t want to testify, Stephens said.

Stephens and Red Corn also said child protection investigations and internal investigations by school officials and education professional standards boards have a much lower threshold to prove — a preponderance of evidence or proving that there is a greater than 50% likelihood that the abuse occurred.

A criminal case must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, a much higher bar. If there is no physical evidence and the victim is not willing to testify, it hampers the prosecution of those cases, Red Corn and others interviewed said.

“A teacher can be suspended or terminated for violating the code of conduct,” Stephens said. “But it may not rise to something that can be criminally pursued.”

Teachers are also often respected members of a community, which creates a stilted power dynamic.

“People don’t think that someone who is educated, who is often a respected member of that community could do something like that to a child,” said Kretzer, of the state children’s advocacy center.

That makes it even more difficult for victims to testify against someone who may be admired or revered by others in a community. It’s likely a bigger issue in smaller, rural communities, Red Corn said.

Under Kentucky court rules, criminal prosecutors cannot use experts to explain to judges and juries why sexual abuse victims may delay reporting or how untreated sexual abuse can result in other behaviors, such as alcohol and drug addiction, said Kimberly Baird, First Assistant Commonwealth Attorney in Fayette County.

Yet, defense attorneys often use the victim’s past to discredit the victim’s testimony, Baird said, who has years of experience trying sexual abuse cases.

Kimberly Withers Daleure is a guardian ad litem, a lawyer who represents kids in abuse, neglect and dependency court. Daleure said she can only think of two sexual abuse cases in 22 years representing children in court where the perpetrator was prosecuted.

“There was physical evidence,” Daleure said of those two cases. Daleure said she has never represented a child in a sexual abuse case where the abuser was a stranger.

Daleure has represented kids who were victims of sexual abuse and were willing to testify, but the criminal case still wasn’t pursued.

The reason?

That it would be more damaging to put the child on the stand than to pursue a criminal case, she said.

Also, police special victims units that focus on child sexual abuse are often understaffed.

“There’s a lack of resources dedicated to it,” Daleure said. “We don’t value children in our society. If there’s a cut to be made, it’s to kids because they don’t vote.”

And that comes at a great cost to the victim and society.

When the perpetrator goes unpunished, that creates trauma for victims, she said.

Stephens agreed.

“Economically the cost of untreated childhood trauma is estimated to be $800,000 — lost work productivity, higher cost of healthcare, jail and addiction recovery,” Stephens said. That’s a lifetime per victim estimate from the National Children’s Advocacy Center. The total cost of untreated childhood abuse trauma for Medicaid, a state and federal healthcare program for the poor and disabled, is estimated to be $5.9 billion annually across the country, the advocacy center estimates.

Daleure not only represents kids who have been abused; she is a survivor.

In 2015 she wrote a letter to the teacher and the school board detailing her alleged sexual abuse by a teacher while she was a student at Russell County High School in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The teacher immediately retired. The school board reported it to the EPSB. The teacher’s license was permanently revoked, according to EPSB records.

Daleure said a prosecutor contacted her months after she sent the letter. Daleure opted not to pursue a criminal case for a variety of reasons. She looked up the statutes — she was over 16 years old at the time the teacher abused her. In the late 1980s, Kentucky had not yet changed its criminal statutes to make an exception for people in positions of power, such as teachers, who sexually abuse children under the age of 18.

But some people in Russell County were upset she told the school about what had happened to her — more than 25 years later.

“There were people who told me it had hurt that family,” Daleure said. “I think that’s sadly the mindset in small towns.”

Not all teachers subject to state oversight

Not all teachers who have been accused of sexual misconduct get their licenses revoked. That means some teachers who have had questionable relationships with students may be allowed back in the classroom.

Brett Meredith, a teacher and coach at Metcalfe High School, was accused of having sex with a senior high school female student in 2013 but was never charged because Kentucky State Police determined the student was over 18 at the time.

His license was suspended from May 2013 to May 2023 and he was ordered to undergo more training before having his certificate reinstated, according to his file. After his license is reinstated, he cannot have any other disciplinary actions involving inappropriate contact with a child, according to an order entered in June 2017.

Gary Logsdon, a lawyer for Meredith, said the case against his client was “weak to non-existent.”

Kenneth Hart pleaded guilty to four counts of harassment while working as a substitute teacher in Warren County and was accused of touching several students inappropriately, according to court and education standards board records.

Kentucky State Police and child protection substantiated the abuse allegations. He received a one-year probated sentence. Hart’s license was suspended for seven years starting in July 2016. He could apply to have his license reinstated in July 2023.

Hart was also ordered to undergo further training before having his certificate reinstated and/or applying for a new certificate. He must pass a “fit for duty” assessment and must also submit criminal records checks annually, according to EPSB records.

Alan Simpson, a lawyer who represented Hart, said Hart pleaded guilty in an Alford plea, which means he maintained his innocence but acknowledged that the prosecutors’ evidence against him likely would have resulted in a guilty verdict. Cases involving adult sexual misconduct allegations are not always clear-cut, he said.

“Through the investigation, it became very clear that there was nothing sexual about anything that he was even alleged to have done,” Simpson said. “And that’s why the charges were amended to harassment which is a misdemeanor.”

Simpson said Hart will eventually ask for the misdemeanor cases to be expunged.

“We will try to expunge his record,” Simpson said. Simpson said if Hart chooses to go back into the educational setting he would reapply to get his license.

“I’ve known Mr. Hart for years, he’s a very kind gentle person.“

Todd Allen, general counsel for the Education Professional Standards Board, did not speak to the specifics of the Hart or Meredith cases or why their licenses were not permanently revoked.

Allen said there are challenges involving the investigation of sexual abuse and misconduct.

“EPSB disciplinary cases are handled according to the unique factual circumstances and applicable law in each case,” Allen said. “Unfortunately, in some cases it is difficult to gain victim and witness participation especially in sexual misconduct cases.”

It also must respect due process. A criminal charge does not always result in a criminal conviction, he said.

“The EPSB uses the information in its possession to secure the best outcome possible for Kentucky students while still respecting the due process rights of educators,” Allen said.

This story was originally published September 27, 2022 at 9:00 AM.

Beth Musgrave

Lexington Herald-Leader

Beth Musgrave has covered government and politics for the Herald-Leader for more than a decade. A graduate of Northwestern University, she has worked as a reporter in Kentucky, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois and Washington D.C. Support my work with a digital subscription

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Valarie Honeycutt Spears

Lexington Herald-Leader

859-379-4967

Staff writer Valarie Honeycutt Spears covers K-12 education, social issues and other topics. She is a Lexington native with southeastern Kentucky roots.  Support my work with a digital subscription