Washington
WA state discipline of teachers in many cases shielded from the public
An InvestigateWest analysis of the state’s educator misconduct database shows gaps allowing teachers to escape scrutiny
In November 2024, a woman in her early 30s walked into her former high school in Vancouver, Washington, and reported to the principal that while she was a student, she was groomed for a sexual relationship by Shadbreon Gatson, a longtime English teacher at the school.
Police arrested Gatson, and news coverage inspired two other former students from Hudson’s Bay High School to come forward with similar allegations against Gatson.
Records showed that the educator’s inappropriate behavior was brought to school leaders’ attention at least four times in the last 15 years. One woman who came forward in 2024 was interviewed by school leaders a decade earlier, when she was a sophomore student. A school janitor found her and Gatson, who was partially undressed, alone in the band room with the lights off. Administrators didn’t properly investigate, according to a third-party investigation ordered by the school district. The sexual abuse continued.
Partly because the district failed to act for years, the educator avoided a criminal conviction — prosecutors dropped charges against him in January 2025 because the statute of limitations had passed. And because Gatson then resigned, he didn’t have to participate in the school district’s third-party investigation. He also voluntarily surrendered his teaching license, which means the public can’t see details of his case in Washington’s statewide teacher misconduct database. InvestigateWest could not reach him for comment.
An InvestigateWest analysis of 10 years’ worth of cases from the statewide database reveals how Gatson’s case is just one of many illustrating how teachers in Washington accused of sexual misconduct can escape accountability and public scrutiny, opening the door for them to find jobs elsewhere.
While the database, managed by the state’s K-12 education oversight agency, offers one of the only windows into the prevalence of educator sexual misconduct in Washington, it also shrouds some of the most troubling cases.
Washington is largely ahead of other states in tracking and publishing the names of teachers who have faced disciplinary action, but many gaps remain. When a member of the public goes to the website, the database doesn’t prominently show why a person’s teaching license was suspended or mandatorily revoked, making that information available only in the case files. And if a person voluntarily surrenders their license, as Gatson did, those case files aren’t accessible without filing a public records request, which can take months to fulfill.
One hundred and fifty-seven teachers, or nearly 45% of all teachers who appear in the database since 2015, voluntarily surrendered their licenses, shielding their files –– and misconduct –– from public view. In Seattle Public Schools, all but four of the 15 educators recorded in the database voluntarily surrendered their license.
“This is how they are being hidden in plain sight without anyone’s knowledge of their wrongdoing,” said Terri Miller, the board president of the National Center to Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct & Exploitation, which advocates for federal and state legislation to prevent and address sexual misconduct in schools.
“That is deliberate enabling of child predation in our schools,” Miller added.
The Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, which oversees the state’s misconduct database, declined interview requests from InvestigateWest.
In response to written questions, Katy Payne, a spokesperson for the state agency, said an educator is allowed to voluntarily surrender their license for any reason as long as they have not received a final order for revocation or been convicted of a felony crime. Once a teacher voluntarily surrenders their license, the state agency is not required under state law to open an investigation unless a formal complaint is received from a superintendent. A teacher can also reapply for their teaching license under some circumstances if they voluntarily surrender it, as long as they disclosed why they surrendered it in the first place.
When asked why the voluntary surrender case files are not included in the state’s public facing database, Payne said it is because the forms “do not meet web accessibility requirements,” but can be obtained through a public records request.
An analysis of the available case files, coupled with a review of media reports published over the last decade, shows that of the 349 teachers added to the state’s database for having their license revoked, suspended or voluntarily surrendered, 160 teachers –– or approximately 46% of all cases –– involve sexual misconduct.
And that’s likely an undercount. Many teachers who were found to have committed sexual misconduct weren’t categorized as such in OSPI’s internal database, according to InvestigateWest’s review of the files. For example, a substitute teacher at the Deer Park School District, Nathan White, lost his Washington teaching license because he was arrested in Utah for trying to meet with a 13-year-old girl for sex. His misconduct was not labeled as sexual misconduct on the back end of the state’s database but instead “character/fitness,” a broader category that can encompass sexual misconduct.
The database of misconduct and disciplinary action is reported each year to the governor-appointed Washington State Professional Educator Standards Board, which sets the rules dictating educator certifications and code of conduct issues.
“This database and the way they’re tracking it is insufficient to protect victims and protect kids,” said Ashton Dennis, a personal injury lawyer with the Washington Law Center who specializes in sexual abuse cases. “That is a glaring failure on behalf of the state to not record (these) things as sexual misconduct.”
Gaps in Washington’s teacher misconduct database
Each year, Washington’s K-12 education oversight agency receives complaints from superintendents across the state regarding potential professional misconduct issues like leaving students unattended, failing to report child abuse, sexually pursuing students, watching porn at school, using drugs, and lying on a job application.
Last year, the state received 143 complaints from superintendents, according to Payne, and issued formal discipline — suspensions, revocations and voluntary surrenders — against 35 educators. Fourteen of those educators voluntarily surrendered their licenses, making their disciplinary files not accessible in the public database.
The database only includes school district employees who have a teaching license, meaning it excludes others such as coaches, bus drivers or support staff.
For example, Dennis helped represent around a dozen former students who were sexually abused by a wrestling coach, David O’Connor, in the University Place School District located in the Puget Sound. The school district has paid out nearly $14 million on behalf of victims so far through settlement agreements. Since the wrestling coach did not have a teaching certificate and does not appear in the state’s database, it is less likely that members of the public or future employers would know about the alleged misconduct.
There are also long-standing gaps in how states communicate with each other about disciplined teachers. The disciplinary files sometimes don’t follow them to another state, or there’s a lag.
Washington’s education oversight agency uses a national database, the NASDTEC Educator Identification Clearinghouse, to screen potential candidates, but if other states fail to report an action taken against a teacher, or if there are delays, they might unknowingly hire a teacher with serious misconduct on their record.
In February 2020, school administrators at the Toppenish School District in Eastern Washington received a job application from Alexander Lacey, who was applying to be a school psychologist. He was qualified for the position, having held the same role for numerous years in California.
On his job application, as well as on his forms to apply for a Washington teaching license, he wrote that he had never been reprimanded or investigated by a prior employer regarding misconduct or resigned from a position in the middle of an investigation. Neither was true.
Records show that he had resigned from his previous position in California three months earlier, after a student told the school district that Lacey had groomed and pursued a sexual relationship with her during her senior year in 2018. The student had survived a suicide attempt that year, and as the school psychologist, Lacey had been assigned to look after her well-being, records show.
In April 2021, following the California investigation, the state revoked his teaching license. But it took another two years before Washington took action. Records show that investigators with Washington’s oversight agency only reprimanded the educator for lying on his job application –– not for the previous sexual misconduct that occurred over state lines.
And instead of revoking his license as the California regulators did, his license was instead suspended for three months and was reinstated in September 2023. He now works for an international study abroad program, according to his LinkedIn.
Payne, with OSPI, said in an email that if a teacher is under investigation by state investigators or if disciplinary action is taken, a banner will appear when the school district searches the person’s name in the state’s internal database.
But since California hadn’t completed its investigation into Lacey by the time he applied to work in Washington, there likely wasn’t a flag on his application in the system. And even if there was, the alert doesn’t show what the actual issue was.
“If a school district is considering an applicant and their record contains a banner, the district could contact OSPI to request additional information, they could ask the candidate directly, and/or they could decide not to consider the candidate for the position,” Payne wrote. “School districts have the experience to know that disciplinary action is something to investigate further before making a job offer to a candidate.”
Payne said OSPI adds new information from the national database monthly.
State database: the tip of the iceberg
Washington’s statewide teacher misconduct database is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the prevalence of teacher sexual misconduct in K-12 schools. And Washington isn’t alone in failing to track or accurately quantify how often it happens. The U.S. Department of Education, the Department of Justice and child welfare agencies do not collect consistent data regarding employee sexual misconduct in K-12 schools.
Researchers estimate that one in every 10 students experiences some form of educator sexual misconduct by the time they graduate high school, with the average age a survivor discloses their experiences being 52 years old. Students may not come forward because they fear the perpetrator, they feel shame about what happened or they might not recognize the teacher’s behavior as abuse.
“Students aren’t taught what to look for in terms of boundary crossing, and they might instead think, ‘Oh, this is cool to be friends with the teacher,’” said Joel Levin, the co-founder and director of programs for the Seattle-based nonprofit Stop Sexual Assault in Schools. “It could be subtle at the beginning, but then sometimes it progresses from these sorts of subtle flirting things to physical contact.”
Levin founded his nonprofit in 2015 after his daughter was assaulted by a peer on a school field trip and his family struggled to hold Seattle Public Schools accountable. “The revictimization, institutional betrayal, this type of thing that we experienced firsthand –– we didn’t want other families to go through it like we did.”
Research shows that administrators and school leaders can often fail to recognize common grooming signs and report the behavior to law enforcement or other state oversight agencies meant to investigate claims of sexual misconduct. Inadequate district investigations and union negotiations can also keep misconduct from being reported.
When a teacher is allowed to quietly resign from their position during an investigation, they can avoid formal discipline that could ultimately prohibit them from being hired elsewhere. In these instances, a teacher is often allowed to leave without a “termination for cause” on their employment record and a school district can avoid a lengthy –– and at times expensive –– firing process. The practice, which makes it difficult to quantify the prevalence of teacher sexual abuse, is known to researchers and investigators as “passing the trash.”
“There are so many things that are wrong with this practice of passing the trash that does even more detrimental harm to victims,” said Miller, with the National Center to Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct & Exploitation.
“Oftentimes, (victims) say the abuse was bad enough, but knowing there were people that knew, knowing there were people that could have stepped in and intervened and helped at the time, that betrayal is sometimes a harder pill to swallow for them,” she added.
A separation agreement is what allowed a Mercer Island High School English teacher to quietly resign from the district despite misconduct concerns.
Eric Ayrault, who taught in the Mercer Island High School’s English Department from 1997 until 2019, was under investigation in 2018 for misconduct related to “maintaining professional staff/student boundaries” before his resignation, school records show.
The investigation was initiated in part after three students shared a GoogleDoc with the principal that documented over a dozen alleged instances of inappropriate behavior over the course of a semester.
In his separation agreement, Erin Battersby, the head of legal for the Mercer Island School District, wrote that the three week investigation into the allegations had concluded “without a finding.” He resigned the same day without facing any formal discipline and went on to teach at seven schools in Colorado and California, according to his LinkedIn.
Battersby, who is in charge of investigating reports of teacher misconduct within the Mercer Island School District, declined numerous interview requests.
School records show that Ayrault had been under investigation the year prior after a fellow teacher reported to the administration that she had overheard students complaining that he was “creepy” and made them feel uncomfortable.
The investigative report obtained by InvestigateWest showed the educator was found to have violated three separate school policies, including “Maintaining Professional Staff/Student Boundaries” and sexual harassment. He was required to enter a no-contact agreement with one of the students, which included a safety plan for the student. But the discipline was nominal. He received a written reprimand and was required to take additional training. His conduct was not reported to the state, and he was allowed to continue teaching.
“Reports to OSPI are the responsibility of the superintendent and in this instance, we do not know why the superintendent at the time did not make a report,” Ian Henry, the spokesperson for the Mercer Island School District, wrote in an email to InvestigateWest. “Unfortunately, we can’t speak to the actions of a former superintendent.”
Ayrault’s misconduct was finally reported to Washington’s oversight agency in October 2025 by the current superintendent, after InvestigateWest published reports regarding two other longtime English teachers at the school who had engaged in inappropriate relationships with students. But as of Jan. 26, 2025, Ayrault does not appear in OSPI’s misconduct database.
The first teacher, Gary “Chris” Twombley, was quietly put on paid administrative leave in 2023 and later resigned and voluntarily surrendered his teaching license, according to a settlement agreement between the school district and the teachers’ union.
The second teacher, Curtis Johnston, abruptly announced his retirement a few days after InvestigateWest and the Mercer Island Reporter published an investigation into Twombley. It was later revealed, after a victim came forward, that the school district had been made aware that Johnston was engaging in a sexual relationship with a student in 2011 but that administrators failed to properly investigate.
Current administrators with the school district launched an investigation into Johnston following InvestigateWest’s reporting, but closed it less than two months later after being “unable to make any findings.”
Dennis, the attorney with the Washington Law Center law firm, said he often sees school districts blaming the teachers’ union for not allowing them to fire a teacher who displayed problematic behavior.
Unions are legally required to provide fair, impartial and good faith representation to all members following a landmark 1944 Supreme Court ruling. But Dennis sees school districts using the union as a scapegoat more often than not.
“If there’s children’s safety involved, that is not an acceptable excuse,” he said.
The Washington Education Association, the state’s teachers union, declined interview requests for this story.
Dennis said when school districts allow a teacher to quietly resign from their position without formal discipline, they are often thinking about cost savings, not student safety.
“They may not want to frame it that way, but at the end of the day, that’s what they’re doing. And it’s a conscious decision that they’re making. Saying, ‘Hey, do we want to fight this? It’s going to cost us X, Y and Z, or do we just move on?’ Meanwhile, kids are being harmed.”
“It makes my blood boil,” he added.
Miller, who advocates against educator sexual abuse nationwide, stressed that there are state and federal laws on the books that prohibit school districts from allowing teachers to avoid accountability and swiftly move on to different jobs.
While federal law doesn’t outright ban the use of settlement or confidentiality agreements, it does discourage school districts from using them in cases of sexual misconduct, and it mandates that states enact policies or regulations to prohibit such agreements.
“But there’s not enough teeth in it,” Miller said.
She was surprised to learn these agreements were still being negotiated in Washington, considering it was one of the pioneering states to pass model legislation banning them more than 20 years ago.
“If this is still happening, well, maybe Washington needs to ramp up their penalties,” Miller said. “Because they are deliberately endangering children and students, and they are deliberately setting up other districts for liability when those people offend again.”
The King County Sexual Assault Resource Center offers free and confidential support and information 24 hours a day for survivors, family and others assisting survivors at 1-888-998-6423.
Moe K. Clark is a collaborative investigative reporter at InvestigateWest, covering Washington’s criminal justice system and other topics. Her work is supported by the Murrow News Fellowship, a state-funded journalism initiative managed by Washington State University.
The state of Washington is getting a seventh temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Marysville Washington Temple was announced Sunday night during a devotional in the Marysville Washington Stake by Elder Hugo E. Martinez, a General Authority Seventy in the church’s United States West Area Presidency.
“We are pleased to announce the construction of a temple in Marysville, Washington,” the First Presidency said in a statement. “The specific location and timing of the construction will be announced later. This is a reason for all of us to rejoice and express gratitude for such a significant blessing — one that will allow more frequent access to the ordinances, covenants and power that can only be found in the house of the Lord.”
The other temples in Washington are the Columbia River, Moses Lake, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma and Vancouver temples.
The church has 214 temples in operation. Plans for another 170 temples have been announced; many of those temples are in various stages of planning and construction.
Sunday’s temple announcement follows the new practice of the church’s First Presidency, which determines where temples will be built — and when and how they will be announced.
The First Presidency directed a General Authority Seventy to announce the first temple in Maine at a fireside there in December.
In January, church President Dallin H. Oaks said the Maine announcement set the pattern for future temple announcements.
“The best place to announce a temple is in that temple district,” he told the Deseret News.
The First Presidency will continue to decide where future temples will be built. It then will “assign someone else to make the announcement in the place where the temple will be built,” he said.
This pattern came to him as a strong impression after he assumed leadership of the church in October, following the death of his friend, President Russell M. Nelson.
This came as a strong impression to him shortly after he assumed the leadership of the church, President Oaks said.
The church remains in the midst of an aggressive temple-building era. President Nelson announced 200 new temples from 2018 to 2025. All but one were announced at general conference.
Five dozen temples are now under construction.
President Oaks now has overseen the announcement of two temples, neither at a general conference.
At the October conference he said that “with the large number of temples now in the very earliest phases of planning and construction, it is appropriate that we slow down the announcement of new temples.”
Ten new temples are scheduled to be dedicated in the next six months.
- May 3: Davao Philippines Temple.
- May 3: Lindon Utah Temple.
- May 31: Bacolod Philippines Temple.
- June 7: Yorba Linda California Temple.
- June 7: Willamette Valley Oregon Temple.
- Aug. 16: Belo Horizonte Brazil Temple.
- Aug. 16: Cleveland Ohio Temple.
- Aug. 30: Phnom Penh Cambodia Temple.
- Oct. 11: Miraflores Guatemala City Guatemala Temple.
- Oct. 18: Managua Nicaragua Temple.
Two-thirds of the 170 temples still to be built are outside the United States.
Temples are distinct from the meetinghouses where Latter-day Saints worship Jesus Christ each Sunday. Temples are closed on Sundays, but they open during the week as sanctuaries where church members go to find peace, make covenants with God and perform proxy ordinances for deceased relatives.
On a perfect day in Seattle for football, Washington took the field inside Husky Stadium for its first scrimmage of spring practice, and ahead of his third season at the helm, Jedd Fisch seemed pleased with the results.
“Guys played and competed their ass off,” he said after the Huskies ran 120 plays. “That’s the type of day we want to have…We have a lot to work on, but we’re excited that today gave us this opportunity.”
The 120 plays had a little bit of everything, but the biggest thing the Huskies showed during the day was that, despite the inexperience that Fisch’s coaching staff is looking to lean on at several positions, there’s plenty of talent littering the roster. The best example of that is sophomore safety Paul Mencke Jr., who had his best practice in a Husky uniform after Fisch announced on Saturday that senior CJ Christian is out for the year after suffering a torn Achilles tendon during Tuesday’s practice at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center.
“Paul’s done a great job of competing and being physical and playing fast, and you could see over these three years, he’s really grown into understanding now the system, and what’s asked of him as a safety,” Fisch said. “I think there’s a lot of in him that he wants to be like (safeties coach Taylor) Mays. He sees himself as a tall, linear, big hitter. So when you have your coach that is known for that type of play, I think Paul has done a great job.”
Mencke was all over the field. Not only did he lay some big hits, just like his safeties coach did during his time at USC, but the former four-star recruit also tallied a pair of pass breakups, an interception in a 7-on-7 period, and multiple strong tackles to hold ball carriers to limited yards.
While the defense did a good job getting pressure throughout the day and making the quarterbacks hold the ball with different looks on the back end, with safety Alex McLaughlin, linebacker Donovan Robinson, and edge rusher Logan George all among the players credited for a sack, quarterback Demond Williams Jr. got an opportunity to show off how he’s improved ahead of his junior year.
Early on, he showed off his well-known speed and athleticism, making the correct decision on a read option, pulling the ball and scampering for a 25-yard gain before displaying his touch. Throughout the day, his favorite target was junior receiver Rashid Williams, whom he found on several layered throws of 15-plus yards in the various scrimmage periods of practice.
On a day when every able-bodied member of the team was able to get several reps of live action, here are some of the other noteworthy plays from the day.
Spring practice notebook
- Freshman cornerback Jeron Jones was unable to participate in the scrimmage and was spotted working off to the side with the rest of the players rehabbing their injuries.
- The running backs delivered a pair of big blows on the day. First, cornerback Emmanuel Karnley was on the receiving end of a big hit from redshirt freshman Quaid Carr before the former three-star recruit ripped off a 13-yard touchdown run on the next play. Later on, every player on offense had a lot of fun cheering on freshman Ansu Sanoe after he leveled Zaydrius Rainey-Sale, letting the sophomore linebacker hear all about it when the play was whistled dead.
- Sophomore wide receiver Justice Williams put together a strong day with several contested catches, showing off his strong hands and 6-foot-4 frame, including a 25-yard catch and run off a drag route from backup quarterback Elijah Brown.
- Of all the tackles for a loss the Huskies were able to rack up throughout the day, two stood out. First, junior defensive tackle Elinneus Davis burst through the middle of the line to wrap up freshman running back Brian Bonner. Later on, freshman outside linebacker Ramzak Fruean wasn’t even touched as he shot through a gap in the offensive line to track down a play from behind, letting the entire offensive sideline know about the play on his way back to his own bench.
- The Huskies experimented with several defensive line combinations on Saturday, and for the first time this spring, it felt like freshman Derek Colman-Brusa took the majority of his reps alongside someone other than Davis, who he said has taken on an older brother role to help mentor the top-ranked in-state prospect in the 2026 class.
“Elinneus is a phenomenal guy. Great work ethic. He’s kind of taken on that older brother mentor for me. He’s been a great help just to learn plays and learn the scheme. Can’t say enough good things about the guy.”
- Ball State transfer Darin Conley took a handful of reps with the first team, while rotating with Colman-Brusa, who got a lot of work in alongside Sacramento State transfer DeSean Watts.
Twenty Sioux Falls School District art teachers have their own original pieces on display at the Washington Pavilion’s University Gallery now through May 31.
The “Teachers as Artists” exhibit showcases their work not just as educators, but as artists inside and outside of the classroom, and highlights how art education builds critical thinking, creative problem-solving and self-expression skills.
Edison Middle School art teacher Meagan Turbak-Fogarty said she dreamt of such a showcase since her first year teaching.
She and Kathy Dang, an art teacher at Marcella LeBeau Elementary School who also serves on the city’s Visual Arts Committee, partnered with the city and Washington Pavilion to bring the showcase to life.
Turbak-Fogarty has taught at Edison for five years and said her passion for art is “instantly felt” on her classroom walls, but that students have asked where they could see her art in the classroom, or what kind of art she creates in her own time.
“I always felt the feeling that I stand in front of all these kids every single day and preach about how much I love art, and how art has changed my life,” Turbak-Fogarty said. “That got me thinking, ‘I want to show them.’”
Some of her works on display at the Pavilion include art she created in her first year teaching, including a large Cheetos bag she created as an example for her eighth grade classroom when they were working on a large chip bag project. Turbak-Fogarty said she loves painting, working with acrylics and unconventional materials.
“I wanted to show my students that art can be anything,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be hanging up in a museum to be considered art.”
Continuing to do her own art while teaching the subject helps keep her inspired, Turbak-Fogarty explained, adding that it helps her push her own creativity when it comes to projects she works on with students.
Samantha Levisay, an art teacher at John Harris Elementary School, showed three pieces in the show — “Moments in Time,” “Midnight Butterfly Garden” and “Whimsy” — with the same mixed media, watercolor and printmaking skills that she teaches in different units at every elementary grade.
Levisay educates her students that “art is everywhere.” She said her favorite memories as an art teacher are “moments when I show students a lesson, and they take it even further.”
“Kids are so creative; I marvel at them all the time,” she said. “They inspire me every day with their endless creativity and imagination.”
Roosevelt High School art teacher Ruth Hillman showed two pieces in the show: “The Potato on the Wall,” a mixed media work, and a collection of her handmade clay charms in a shadow box.
She also wore some of her art — miniature potato earrings made of clay.
Hillman is in her third year at RHS. When she’s not teaching art, she’s also making art, and sells her charms at shows like the Art Collective.
Washington High School art teacher Mollie Potter displayed a three-part painting series at the show that she said were inspired by her English language learner students’ stories, and how teachers help students “take flight,” as represented by balloons, parachutes and kites in her work.
Porter said she is often inspired by her students’ art in the classroom; for example, one former student was obsessed with swans, and Porter said she later created a painting inspired by one of the student’s stories about swans.
At an April 17 reception, Mayor Paul TenHaken emphasized the arts as an “important economic driver in the community,” and said the show honored educators “who are artists in and of themselves,” but who might not have had a chance to display their art outside the classroom before.
“This is a way for us to honor them and show their incredible work,” TenHaken said.
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