WISCONSIN — The Republican-controlled Assembly wants State Superintendent Jill Underly to address a recent report by The Capital Times.

The news outlet’s year-long investigation examined the Department of Public Instruction’s (DPI) handling of investigations into educator misconduct.

An Assembly committee is holding a hearing on Thursday in response to the paper’s investigation, and Underly is invited to testify.

The report looked at the numbers from 2018 to 2023. Through a series of open records requests, the investigation found that in that five-year period, DPI investigated 461 educators for all forms of misconduct, including sexual. 

There was no probable cause found in 178 cases. A total of 161 educators voluntarily surrendered their licenses.  DPI revoked 66 licenses.

The Cap Times report also states that DPI did not make the findings of these investigations readily available to the public.

Investigative Reporter Danielle DuClos conducted the investigation into DPI.

Her findings also showed that 204 educators, including teachers and administrators, were investigated by DPI for alleged sexual misconduct and grooming from 2018 to 2023.   

In an interview about her report, DuClos told Spectrum News that her research showed 60 of those 204 educators kept their teaching licenses. 

“The most surprising thing was the lack of data on how often teachers and educators are being investigated for allegations of grooming and sexual misconduct, and that’s really what prompted this reporting project, to look at how often that is happening,” DuClos said. “We asked that question and started digging into records and really trying to answer the prevalence question.”

DuClos said her research showed at least 44% of DPI’s investigations since 2018 had to do with allegations of educator sexual misconduct, or grooming.

“We say at least 44% because there are about one fifth of the cases we reviewed where we weren’t able to categorize the conduct, and that was about 100 of those cases,” DuClos added.

Of the 204 educators investigated on accusations of sexual misconduct, DuClos said her findings revealed that more than 80 of them voluntarily surrendered their teaching licenses, the most common way educators lose their teaching credentials in Wisconsin across all types of misconduct.

The year-long investigation yielded a mountain of documents. DuClos said this included requesting, via open records, DPI’s internal tracking sheet for how they monitor these investigations.

“We also got a document that had case note summaries going back to about 2019 through part of 2022 that had notes from the department about what the investigations were like,” she said.

DuClos conducted her investigation by also cross-referencing with media reports, school district records and court records to fill in any missing information, she said.

In July, The Cap Times asked for about 100 individual educator case files from DPI via another open records request. DuClos said that request has yet to be fulfilled.

State Superintendent Underly released the following statement last Friday, after The Cap Times published its investigation:

“Student safety is the foundation of everything that we do in education. Every allegation of educator misconduct is treated with the highest level of seriousness and is thoroughly investigated by the Department of Public Instruction.

“Any suggestion that the DPI withholds information from the public is categorically false. Records are released in accordance with open records laws, and educator license statuses are publicly available to anyone on the DPI’s website.

“Voluntary surrenders of licensure are not loopholes. They are permanent, legally binding agreements that remove harmful individuals from the classroom and prevent them from teaching. In many cases, they also protect victims from additional trauma.

“Journalism is the foundation of our democracy. But inaccurate reporting and sensationalism that ignores facts, distorts the truth, and omits key context has no place.

“This reporting failed to acknowledge critical facts and the legal boundaries in which the DPI operates. I urge The Capital Times to issue a prompt correction to restore public trust and ensure an accurate understanding of our work to protect students.”