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Report on schools grim for some herePima County has many teacher sex-abuse cases

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Dozens of Arizona teachers lost their certifications from 2001 to 2005 after being accused of sexual misconduct and 16 — or about 1 in 5 — of them were in Pima County, an investigation shows.

Records show 83 teachers lost their certifications in Arizona during the five-year period, and young people were victims in many of the cases — the large majority of them students.

The figures illustrate how the state has struggled to protect students against child-molesting teachers. The cases have continued, too.

Just last week, a former Salpointe Catholic High School teacher accused of having sex with a 17-year-old student pleaded guilty to one count of failure to report a reportable offense and three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Officials from various districts across Pima County say they do everything in their power to make sure sexual misconduct doesn't occur in their schools.

Many districts run extensive background checks and many will not hire anyone who has engaged in sexual misconduct.

The Marana Unified School District, where one teacher lost certification in 2001 and another in 2002, has introduced a system that scans a driver's license for potential criminal background. Besides fingerprinting and background checks, any new teacher also has to have additional fingerprint clearance from the Arizona Department of Education, officials said.

"We are entrusted by parents and the community to provide a safe environment for those students," said Norma Johnson, executive director of human resources for the district. "It's our responsibility to make sure employees can abide by those (policies)."

Although it's common practice to run background checks in school districts, some districts, such as TUSD, where five teachers lost certification from 2001 to 2005, say they'll pull teachers out of classrooms as soon as an arrest is made, and will not let the teacher back into the classroom until clearance from the Arizona Department of Education is granted. In some cases, even if there is a mistake, that can take up to a year, a district spokeswoman said.

The Pima County Attorney's Office has a zero-tolerance policy for any sort of sexual misconduct in schools, said Susan Eazer, supervisor of the Special Victim's Unit, which prosecutes sex offenders.

Arizona's figures were gathered as part of a seven-month investigation in which Associated Press reporters sought records on teacher discipline in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Across the country, sexual misconduct allegations led states to take action against the licenses of 2,570 educators from 2001 through 2005. That figure includes licenses that were revoked, denied and surrendered.

The AP reports don't include the names of the teachers involved, or details about all the cases. Some of the cases were written about at the time, but others apparently didn't receive much press attention. Star archives hint at some of the indiscretions, and how it can take years for teachers to be fired despite the districts' policies.

For example:

● James Knighton was fired from TUSD's Doolen Elementary School in January 2002 and lost his certification afterward. According to records, Knighton was directed to have no further contact with an eighth-grade student but then delivered a note to her stating he loved her and inviting her to travel to California with him, records say.

● E. Michael Livingston was fired from TUSD's Magee Middle School in March 2003 and lost his certification afterward. According to records, he was suspended for 10 days in December 1998 after a female student claimed he grabbed her breast during a holiday concert. Four years later, he was caught in the back seat of his car with a 15-year-old male student at 4 a.m.

● Patrick Woods was fired from TUSD's Rincon High School, where he also had coached the girls cross-country team, in May 2001 and lost his certification afterward. According to records, he had received back massages from female students in 1995, and two students had sat on his lap. Later that year, a former student claimed Woods asked her about having a threesome with him and his wife. In 2000, reports say Woods showed a female student a tattoo on his buttock, after locking the classroom door. The student showed him her thong underwear and breasts, at his request.

Other teachers found ways to return to teaching even after serious allegations of abuse.

David Edgar Welsh, a popular teacher who'd described himself to parents as "a person who likes to touch and feel and hug," couldn't stay away from school.

Welsh arrived at Kyrene de Las Lomas Elementary School in Phoenix in 1979 as a 24-year-old recent graduate. Officials praised him for his energy and the attention he paid students.

What they didn't know was that some, like Nicole, a third-grader at the time, also were dealing with more furtive advances. Nicole asked that her last name not be used.

According to court documents, Welsh molested Nicole in 1980 and '81 while instructing other third-graders in class. He abused her as she worked on a standardized test, during reading time, and in the dark as everyone else watched a movie. He also molested one of her classmates.

After Nicole's parents found out about Welsh's inappropriate conduct, he was asked to quit by the then-superintendent of the Kyrene School District, Ben Furlong. Furlong didn't contact police or warn state child protection authorities.

"We could have called a peace officer," Furlong said in a recent interview with the AP. "But at that particular time, what school systems were doing was allowing people to resign."

In 2002, police told Nicole that Welsh was working in another elementary school. He had successfully come back to Arizona with recommendation letters from principals at two Iowa schools, where he'd gone after a brief stint in the travel industry. He had molested at least one of his students, a third-grader, just like he molested Nicole in the 1980s.

In Arizona, education officials say a state law was passed in 2001 to keep repeat sex offenders like Welsh from returning. Before that, "we ran into several cases when teachers had been passed from one district to another, where the teacher was allowed to resign" after allegations of child molestation, said state Board of Education Executive Director Vince Yanez.

"In the late '90s, we saw quite a few," he said. "We saw enough … to indicate to the board that something needed to change."

Despite what was common practice in 1981, state law still required schools report allegations of sexual abuse to police, a spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office said.

On Jan. 29, 2003, Welsh pleaded guilty to one count of child molestation, one count of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor and two counts of attempted child molestation. The last two stemmed from his actions toward Nicole and her classmate 22 years before. The judge sentenced him to 19 years in prison, and he died of natural causes 19 months later at a state prison in Florence.

For Nicole, who has since become an elementary school teacher, the only thing that remains from Welsh is a specific, if not completely explained, warning for her children: "Nobody touches you, period," she said. "Nobody. Nobody."