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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

School’s Silence Allowed Teacher to Molest Again at Another School, Mother Claims

URBANA, Ill. (CN) - An Illinois school district's failure report an elementary school teacher's sexual grooming of female students allowed him to molest girls at another school, the mother of an alleged abuse victim claims in Federal Court.

While Jon White taught at Brigham and Colene elementary schools in Normal, Ill., from 2002 to 2005, he sexually groomed female students by having them wrap their legs around him, showing them sexually suggestive photographs and commenting on their sexual attractiveness, the lawsuit claims. He also introduced some of them to the "taste test game," in which he blindfolded a female student and placed foods in her mouth using his hand, his penis or a banana, the complaint states. White sometimes referred to this game as his "Helen Keller curriculum."

Despite these allegations, the plaintiff says Normal school officials gave White a positive letter of recommendation in 2005 that concealed his history with minors.

White was consequently hired by the Urbana School District in August 2005, where he repeated and escalated his sexual grooming behavior to include putting his hands in girls' pockets and touching their genitals and thighs, rolling up their shirts to touch their stomachs, and keeping them in his classroom over lunch.

The mother of an alleged Urbana victim says the officials in Normal knew about the abuse - some of which White admitted - but failed to report it.

She demands $1 million plus punitive damages and is represented by Ellyn Bullock of Champaign, Ill.

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