The new principal for Zion District 6’s Beulah Park Elementary School resigned as a principal at a Wisconsin school this year following allegations of inappropriate sexual relationships with subordinates, records obtained by the Lake County News-Sun show.
Curtiss Tolefree, who was principal at Washington Middle School in Kenosha, was accused of having sexual relationships with two subordinates, having intercourse in the school building and on district-funded conference trips, and of intimidating staff and interfering in the district’s investigation, according to a statement Kenosha Superintendent Sue Savaglio-Jarvis submitted to the school board.
Savaglio-Jarvis recommended Tolefree be fired, but he resigned before the school board voted on the matter, records obtained by Freedom of Information Act requests show.
Attempts to reach Tolefree last week were unsuccessful, but Todd Terry, an attorney representing Tolefree, emailed the News-Sun following those attempts. He said in the email that he and Tolefree have “some serious concerns about the veracity and vetting of the facts contained within those documents.”
“(T)hose documents were not the result of a hearing or, frankly, any process where my client had an opportunity to be heard or refute these inflammatory allegations,” he said.
Attempts to obtain follow-up comments from Terry were not successful. After the article was published online, Terry emailed a News-Sun reporter, notifying her that they had filed an injunction Friday afternoon in Kenosha County against the Kenosha school district, the Chicago Tribune and Kenosha News. The News-Sun is part of the Chicago Tribune suburban news group.
The injunction requested that the two news outlets be prevented from publishing information from the statement of charges released by the district, arguing that Kenosha school district violated Wisconsin law in releasing the document to the Chicago Tribune and Kenosha News, according to a copy provided by Tolefree’s attorney.
“After extensive work on this matter over last twenty four hours, it became immediately apparent that the documents released to you were done so in violation of Wisconsin Law,” Terry said in the email. “Add to that the fact that the documents you received have never been verified to be anything other than half cooked allegations, never substantiated via a hearing or similar adversarial process.”
The Kenosha school district declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying it had not received any form of litigation related to the investigation or the former employee.
Zion Elementary District 6 officials declined to comment on the investigation, whether they knew about the investigation prior to hiring Tolefree and whether they had any next steps regarding the issue, saying it was a personnel matter. District officials also declined to say when Tolefree applied for the position or when it was offered to him.
Tolefree was hired in July by the District 6 school board to lead Beulah Park Elementary starting Aug. 1, district spokeswoman Donelle Staples said in a written statement. The school board approved an 11-month contract with Tolefree with a base salary of $112,000, according to a copy of the contract.
Tolefree denied the allegations in a statement he requested be included in his personnel file, saying he has “substantial evidence that the investigation and documentation is not accurate.” Because he is no longer an employee, he does not have the option of requesting a hearing to dispute the allegations, he said in the written statement.
Zion Elementary District 6 hired Tolefree after agreeing to pay $15,000 to cancel a contract with another candidate for the same position after questions arose about an incident that was not uncovered during a background check.
School board President Ruth Davis defended the process the district uses to vet job candidates in a prepared statement read at the May school board meeting where the resignation agreement was approved.
The district took “all responsible and customary steps” to vet the previous candidate’s credentials, including employment references and a complete criminal background check, she said.
Those steps did not find any prior wrongdoing by the candidate, she said.
The school district’s human resources department processes all staff background checks by checking state and federal databases and submitting fingerprints to Accurate ID, a subscriber system, Staples said in a follow-up statement.
The district spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment about whether Zion officials knew about the allegations against Tolefree prior to his hiring, and whether it has raised any concerns about the district’s vetting process.
Zion District 6 contacted Kenosha Unified School District on July 24 to request a reference check for Tolefree, said attorney Shana Lewis, who represents the Kenosha district. The human resources department provided Zion with demographic information, such as his job title and dates of employment.
Tolefree joined Kenosha Unified School District in 2002 as a special education teacher, according to records from his personnel file. He later became assistant principal at Washington Middle School, and then an interim principal before being hired permanently for the job in March 2015.
Tolefree was in the middle of a two-year contract with a salary of about $110,000 when he resigned July 20, according to records and a district spokeswoman.
The information provided to Zion District 6 did not include any references to the investigation because “releasing such personnel information without a formal request under the Wisconsin Public Records Law is not practice of the district,” Kenosha school district spokeswoman Tanya Ruder said in a written statement.
The investigation was triggered by a May 24, 2018, complaint to the Kenosha school district’s human resources department, alleging an inappropriate relationship between Tolefree and a female subordinate, and the impact it was having the employee’s ability to do her job, according to the statement of charges submitted by the superintendent to the school board.
The investigation concluded that sexual conduct had occurred in the Washington Middle School building and on district-funded conference trips on multiple occasions dating back to around November 2015, according to the report.
The report described a “hostile work environment” for the employee where she was given additional work duties, felt she could not leave the relationship without losing her job and was held “hostage” on multiple occasions in either Tolefree’s office or a conference room.
The report said she also provided Tolefree “lavish gifts,” including embroidered dress shirts, a suit, and daily coffee and lunch as well as loans totaling nearly $7,000 for a fence for his home and tuition for his doctorate program that were not repaid.
The investigation also concluded that Tolefree had an inappropriate relationship with a second subordinate from the spring of 2015 through November of that year, according to the report.
After the relationship ended, the employee was subjected to additional responsibilities, “akin to that of a personal assistant, despite her leadership role,” according to the report.
When rumors about a relationship began to circulate the school earlier this year, Tolefree admonished his staff to “stay out of the pool” and avoid gossip, according to the report.
He was also accused of making negative comments toward staff in an effort to discredit them, such as providing breath mints to an employee who he said had bad breath, opening the door and windows to air out the room when he suggested an employee had body odor, and insinuating a staff member was gay by saying he was “too busy planting flowers,” according to the report.
He also started meetings early to make staff members appear to be late, and threatened to move staff members to different positions within the building, according to the report.
According to the report, Tolefree was interviewed twice as part of the investigation and vehemently denied any inappropriate relationships with staff.
Lewis, the Kenosha school district’s attorney, said she was unable to answer questions about the investigation, including the number of employees interviewed and whether the district had documents or other communication that substantiated the employees’ claims.
Tolefree requested in a July 28 email to Superintendent Sue Savaglio-Jarvis that the investigative findings not be included in the Kenosha district’s response to a public records request, saying that he thought the information would “create mass chaos for Washington Middle School,” certain employees and the Kenosha community.
In the July 28 email, Tolefree said he had been unaware of the investigation’s conclusions when he resigned. If he had known, he said he would not have resigned and would have asked for a closed session hearing to discuss some of the findings.
“Unfortunately, time has passed, and my side of the story can’t be heard,” he said in the email.
The district had notified Tolefree in a July 17 letter that the school board was planning to hold “an evidentiary hearing” to consider the investigation’s findings and the superintendent’s recommendation to fire him, records show.
The letter included the statement of charges provided to the News-Sun.
Had the hearing taken place, both the district and Tolefree would have been allowed to present evidence, according to the district’s letter to Tolefree. He also was allowed to be represented by an attorney.
Tolefree said in the July 28 email his goal in resigning had been to “minimize harm to the district” and that he “wanted to just simply walk away quietly.”
