'I want to know my kid is safe'

School district probe of teacher who filmed students fails to answer parents’ concerns

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It’s been more than 18 months since East High School students found hidden cameras in their hotel rooms on a trip to Minnesota and the subsequent resignation of teacher and chaperone David Kruchten. But parents say the Madison school district has done little to satisfy their concerns about the incident or to ensure that safeguards are in place for future field trips.

“As an East parent, I want to know my kid is safe while on a field trip,” says one parent who requested anonymity to protect the identity of the children. “We know now Kruchten did this on multiple occasions going back years. It took a long time for him to be caught. So clearly there are flaws in the district’s policies and this warranted a deeper dive. I can also say there are factual errors in their investigation because they never talked to students….  I wish the district cared as much about student safety as they do about protecting their own interests.”

As for changes in district policy, school board president Ali Muldrow, in a statement on behalf of the board, says members have been focused on “navigating a global pandemic for the past 17 months.”

“As we continue to confront the pandemic while shifting back to in-person learning full time, the board of education plans to be both intentional and proactive as we review and revise field trip policies,” Muldrow writes. “Reviewing and revising these policies is a process the BOE will engage in both transparently and publicly moving forward.”

Several East High parents were in federal court on Aug. 16 when Kruchten admitted that he placed hidden cameras in the hotel bathroom of students he was chaperoning during multiple extracurricular trips in 2018 and 2019. He pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to produce child pornography and one count of transporting a minor with the intent of producing child pornography. As part of his plea deal, Kruchten will be registered as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Kruchten was arrested following a December 2019 field trip to Minnesota where students found hidden cameras in air fresheners and other items in their hotel bathrooms.

The Madison school district conducted an internal investigation into whether district policies were followed during this field trip, paying private attorney Malina Piontek roughly $8,000 to conduct the independent administrative review. But the district then refused to release the findings, citing “attorney-client privilege” in keeping the full report secret — a move that angered parents and open government advocates. Even school board members weren’t allowed to read it. Only a two-page summary was released publicly, finding “no failure on the part of district staff” to follow district policy. It also determined that statutory requirements for mandatory reporting of child abuse were met.

But as Isthmus reported in late August, the district, without explanation, released the full report of its internal investigation to the paper as part of an open records request related to another hidden camera incident at East. Unlike the summary of the internal investigation, the full report states that mandatory reporting requirements on child abuse didn’t need to be met: “Based on the present facts, there was no sexual abuse or exploitation warranting” district employees to follow mandatory reporting laws, it says. The full report also notes that “due to the trauma experienced by the EHS students, a determination was made not to interview students for this review.”

Isthmus tried to get more information from the district on what seemed like the inadvertent release of the report, including why the district never interviewed affected students or their families and whether district officials agreed with Piontek’s finding that mandatory reporting  rules were not violated because the placement of hidden cameras in the hotel bathrooms of students did not fit the legal definition of child abuse.

District spokesperson Tim LeMonds never responded to these questions, but eventually released a statement to Isthmus on Aug. 23: “All staff from the previous administration who worked most intimately on this matter are no longer with the District and cannot be compelled to participate in any further investigations surrounding this matter.”

Therefore, he adds, “any information relative to why decisions were made by previous administrative staff cannot be verified.”

The internal investigation focused solely on the field trip Kruchten led in December 2019 to Minneapolis. But there were also trips in 2018 and 2019 to Lake Geneva and Wisconsin Dells during which, federal investigators believe, Kruchten also placed cameras in the hotel bathrooms of students.

One parent tells Isthmus the full report confirms suspicions that district administrators did not conduct a proper investigation: “It’s upsetting. It shows the limited scope of the investigation, reveals a serious lack of detail and accuracy, and puts in writ

ing disturbing logic to justify the lack of immediate action and mandatory reporting.”

According to the district’s full report of the internal investigation, students on the December 2019 trip to Minnesota immediately turned the devices they found over to an unnamed East teacher, who was also chaperoning. He then gave them to Kruchten who turned some of them over to hotel staff. According to Minneapolis police reports, the devices were missing the camera’s data cards. Students then found more concealed cameras which were turned over to Kruchten. He is alleged to have lied to the Minneapolis police about what he did with those devices, which were never found.

The district’s full report, written by Piontek, notes “Per the District’s Extended Field Trip Policy and procedure, Krutchen [sic] and chaperone completed mandatory reporting training in September 2018. I conclude that staff were aware of what is required to be reported under Board Policy 4222, and further, they did not violate Board Policy 4222 by not making a report of child abuse to law enforcement while in Minneapolis.”

Neither Kruchten nor the other East teacher contacted parents, law enforcement, or district officials about the cameras the night the first cameras were found on Dec. 7, or in the early morning hours of Dec. 8.

Students, however, were communicating with their parents. One parent called the hotel the next morning, prompting hotel staff to make the first call to law enforcement. It was also a parent who informed Jay Affeldt, the district’s executive director of student and staff support, of the incident. After being interviewed by the Minneapolis Police Department, the students, Kruchten, and the other East teacher headed back to Madison around 10 a.m. on Dec. 8. A district official informed the Madison Police Department about the incident around 3 p.m. Kruchten was placed on administrative leave two days later and resigned from the district in February 2020. The other chaperone is still a teacher at East.

In a February 2020 email to parents, then-interim Superintendent Jane Belmore announced the district would be conducting an internal investigation to review “every detail of this case to make sure that our system is as strong as it can possibly be to keep our students safe.”

Both the full report and two-page summary of the investigation recommended changes to the district’s field trip policy and updates to its social media guidelines. Superintendent Carlton Jenkins, who joined the district in August 2020, told parents in an Oct. 5, 2020, email that he hoped these policy changes would be finalized before the end of the 2021 spring semester. The district’s website indicates no revisions to its field trip or child abuse reporting policies since 2016.

Former school board president Gloria Reyes, who didn’t seek re-election in April 2021, says the board had a lot on its plate in spring 2020 in the early days of COVID-19, including school closures and the need to set up virtual learning. Even so, the board never was given the full internal investigation report completed by Piontek after it was finished in June 2020.

“We should have received it then but we didn’t. It isn’t an excuse but we were waiting for that and proposed policy changes so the board could address this with all the information. That just never happened,” says Reyes. “What happened in this situation is absolutely devastating to so many families. Our entire community deserves a transparent and open process so we can rebuild trust.”

LeMonds says in his Aug. 23 email to Isthmus that the policy recommendations “will move forward to the board this fall. All MMSD field trips continue to be suspended due to the pandemic.”

Kruchten is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in October; he faces between six and 20 years in prison and decades of extended supervision. He might also be required to pay restitution to any student he chaperoned on a field trip while a teacher at East High School. He also faces state charges in Minnesota.

At the Aug. 16 hearing in federal court, U.S. District Judge James Peterson asked Kruchten why he did it.

“I put the hidden cameras there to record images in the hotel rooms and bathrooms of male and female students, just to see what was going on, what they were doing,” said Kruchten.

“Was it your intention to capture photographs or images of them while they were undressed?” asked Peterson.

“Yes,” replied Kruchten. “I just kind of became addicted to spying, seeing what people were doing in their private moments.”