A recent report chastised Chicago Public Schools (CPS) for allowing a campus culture enabling sexual misconduct in the wake of a former dean’s conviction of committing sex abuse and assault against a student.
“Our investigations revealed a culture at the time where professional boundaries between staff members and students were blurred,” Philip Wagenknecht, the district’s inspector general, told Chalkbeat Chicago. “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.”
Meanwhile, Wagenknecht’s CPS office of the Inspector General (OIG) also outlined several instances of fraud throughout the district, requiring the district to repay more than $1 million in restitution.
One of the fraud cases involved a staffer who had consistently overstated enrollment numbers in a federally funded program for years, despite being previously flagged by the office.
“With respect to fraud and financial mismanagement, this was arguably the most egregious conduct covered in the annual report,” Wagenknecht said. “It wasn’t a clerical mistake or an accident.”
