Documents reveal trail of sexual abuse in public schools - teachers who prey on grade-schoolers, plying them with love notes

By Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News

The pile of paperwork obtained by the Denver Catholic Archdiocese from state records contains a sordid record of abuse of children by public school teachers.

There are teachers who prey on grade-schoolers, plying them with love notes. Teachers who download pornography on their desktop computers while students sit before them. Teachers who encourage students to meet them surreptitiously after school, on out-of-town trips, and who give them marijuana or alcohol in exchange for sex.

The Denver archdiocese this week released 85 reports from the Colorado Department of Education's disciplinary files since 1997, in which the state revoked, suspended or denied teaching licenses for reasons related to sexual misconduct - everything from sexual assault to inappropriate conduct.

There actually were 101 reports, but 16 appeared to have no connection to sexual misconduct. Many of those were license revocations of teachers involved in child abuse or domestic violence.

Of the 85 cases, 40 involved felony sexual assaults against students by teachers, including six by female teachers. They were spread all over the state, from Meeker to Yuma, Trinidad to Lamar, Denver to Pueblo. Many involved misconduct that occurred in other states but which caught up to the teachers during background checks here.

But some reports could embarrass the church.

In one case, for example, the state revoked a Colorado teaching license from a former Catholic school teacher who had moved here from Kansas, where he had been accused of downloading child pornography.

In another case, a Saguache public school teacher who was fired for carrying on an inappropriate relationship with a grade-school boy found his next job as part-time bookkeeper at a Catholic church. He was later convicted of stealing more than $20,000 from the church.