(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Jill Underly will not attend hearing this morning on how her department investigates sexual misconduct and grooming allegations against teachers and school staff, according to Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie.
Underly will instead be at Indiana University to receive a distinguished alumni award from Indiana’s College of Arts & Sciences.
“I am disappointed Dr. Underly is not here,” Rep. Mike Bare, D-Verona, said during the hearing. “… she should be.”
Nedweski scheduled the hearing to obtain information after a series of stories from Madison’s Capital Times showed flaws in the DPI’s process of investigating sexual misconduct and grooming cases.
“Parents deserve transparency from Wisconsin’s top education official,” Nedweski wrote. “The @CapTimes report is deeply unsettling — families deserve to know their kids are safe in school.
“At no point did Underly or her team even try to reschedule the hearing date with my office.”
DPI responded Friday in a letter claiming the Capital Times should correct its story related to 200 investigations from 2018 to 2023 into teachers for sexual misconduct and grooming were shielded from the public.
Nedweski announced she will introduce three bills related to protecting students from grooming and sexual misconduct since the report, including a specific grooming law modeled after laws from Illinois and Wisconsin.
Wisconsin’s Senate Committee on Education also requested answers from Underly in a letter, along with her presence at a committee hearing. DPI sent a response to those questions on Tuesday.
Five Wisconsin U.S. Congress members sent a letter to Underly requesting a thorough investigation into DPI’s process.
“Rather than covering up these allegations, each incident should be thoroughly investigated and, if verified, the public and the student’s parents should be informed,” the congressmen wrote. “We echo many of the same questions that members of Wisconsin State Legislature have asked in a recent letter to Superintendent Jill Underly and request that you and the Superintendent hastily answer the letter in its entirety.”
