Dallas SD, feds reach settlement over abuse mishandlings

The Dallas ISD has agreed to a $1 million settlement over allegations that the district failed to protect students from a predator teacher. Good evening, I'm Steve Eager. I'm Heather Hayes. The U.S. Attorney's Office says its investigation of a teacher charged with sexually abusing a special education student in Forney led back to Dallas ISD. The district says it investigated the teacher but could not corroborate the allegations. Fox 4's Sean Rab in our newsroom to explain this highly unusual action by the feds against a public school district. Sean. Highly unusual indeed. And part of a new initiative started right here in North Texas called Project Safe Schools. Again, the U.S. attorney here hopes goes nationwide. An abuse by a Forney ISD teacher was investigated and Forney ISD was fined some $14,000 for failing to take the proper action concerning these allegations of sexual misconduct by an educator. The U.S. attorney says Dallas ISD failed to make disclosures required by law and its federal special education grant. Disclosures the government claims could have prevented Forney from ever hiring Michael Rowell and keep him from being in the Forney school district. Michael Rowell, a.k.a. Jonathan Michael, faces charges of sexually abusing a special education student in Forney. Rowell and former Forney principal, Wendy Bailey, are both under federal indictment. related to concealing his history of sexual abuse of children, special needs kids, using their disability to his predator advantage, the government says. The case in Forney, U.S. Attorney Ryan Rabel says, should never have happened except Dallas ISD, the government charges, failed to report Rowell as required by state law. And Rabel says there are other districts who also failed to comply with the law. Absolutely. Yeah, we have so many investigations going on. And you know what's interesting to me is I ask folks to self-disclose, and we will work with them. But you know what's happening? Parents are coming forward. Teachers that see bad things are coming forward. You know what's not happening? Superintendents continue to not report it. So I think they think this is going to go away. I think they think that we're going to do a couple settlements and just call it a day. But we have many, many investigations ongoing, some of which they have no idea. So I'm compelling independent school districts across North Texas to self-report their misconduct. We know they've done it. TEA has a dashboard that has well over 10,000 incidents. Javon Porter up here and my team is actively investigating this stuff. FBI, HSI are the best in the business working with DPD and DPS. We're all singing from the same hymnal on this. And so we've gotten zero reports. But the great thing is parents see that this is working and it's empowering them. And so, again, I would compel any school district to come forward and tell us what has happened in the last five years regarding child abuse that you did not report or hiring someone that you knew had problems. Now, the settlement with Dallas ISD describes one anonymous complaint of abuse reported to the school district in September 2023 that Roel sexually abused the complainant at a Boy Scout camp in Athens, Texas, sometime between 2000 and 2004. He said he believed Roel selected him because he felt he would not disclose the conduct. Under the law of the district, all districts required to report evidence of educator misconduct. And the U.S. attorney said Dallas ISD did not consider this complaint as evidence. According to the settlement, however, the complaint was reviewed by Dallas ISD police and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, both deciding the case did not fall in their jurisdictions. After interviewing witnesses and the complainant, the district's Office of Professional Standards found there was not enough evidence to corroborate the allegations against Ruel. Now, as for the civil settlement with the government, Dallas ISD will pay a million dollars in civil penalty to resolve allegations that it falsified certified compliance with state child abuse reporting laws while receiving federal special education funds. The district also agrees to bring in local, state, and federal law enforcement when there are allegations requiring these type of investigations, plus post signs outlining child abuse reporting duties, and review every sexual misconduct allegation dating back to 2022 and provide those results to the Texas Education Agency. U.S. Attorney Ray Bull has sent a letter to all North Texas districts saying if your district has engaged in any form of concealment, we strongly encourage voluntary disclosure. Now, in an email statement, the district says in part about the settlement, the district says, look, while we strongly disagree with the government's allegations and legal interpretations of this statute, which was amended by the Texas legislature last year, We share the fundamental goal of Project Safe Schools, protecting students and ensuring their safety. The district wants you to read the entire settlement with the government for yourself, and we have posted that on our website, fox4news.com.