Mercer Island School District’s superintendent contacted police and launched a new investigation into former English teacher Curtis Johnston hours after InvestigateWest reported how the district had previously dismissed allegations that he engaged in a sexual relationship with a student in 2011.
During a school board meeting on Oct. 23, Superintendent Fred Rundle announced that he personally filed a report to local police and a Child Protective Services report was made to the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families based on information detailed in an investigation published by InvestigateWest earlier that day.
He also announced that another longtime educator, social studies teacher David Willecke, had been put on paid administrative leave pending an investigation into whether he had knowledge of the inappropriate relationship and failed to report it. Willecke did not immediately respond Friday to a message seeking comment.
“Mr. Johnston’s alleged conduct is appalling,” Rundle wrote in a letter to the community that was posted Thursday night. “Our former student’s story is heartbreaking to hear as an educator, as a father, and as the current leader of the District where this is alleged to have occurred.”
The inappropriate relationship between Johnston and the former student — which several students who spoke to InvestigateWest said was an “open secret” even years after it occurred — had been briefly investigated in 2011 by administrators after concerns were reported to the school by a church counselor and another student.
Public records obtained by InvestigateWest show that school leaders dismissed suspicions of the inappropriate relationship as a “rumor” despite speaking only to Johnston and the student’s mom, who had expressed concerns but felt she lacked evidence. Johnston, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment, went on to teach for another 14 years.
A photo of former Mercer Island High School English teacher Curtis Johnston at a student’s graduation party in 2011 while the two were in a secret, inappropriate relationship. (Photo provided by the student’s family.)
The former student, who wishes to remain anonymous, says Johnston began grooming her for a sexual relationship starting her senior year of high school — when Johnston was 44 and she was 18 — and it continued through her freshman year of college. The two had become close following a school trip to Southeast Asia.
Johnston announced his retirement in August, a few days after InvestigateWest and the Mercer Island Reporter published an investigation into one of his former colleagues in the English department, Gary “Chris” Twombley, who engaged in an inappropriate relationship with an underage student in 2015 — allegations that the current district leaders kept quiet.
In August, Rundle was asked during an interview with InvestigateWest if an investigation had been opened into Johnston, given the timing of his resignation and allegations that had circulated on social media. Rundle said they did not have enough information to open one.
When interviewed at the beginning of October, and upon hearing of the allegations InvestigateWest planned to report, Rundle said there still was not enough information to look into Johnston’s conduct, but that he would remain “alert.”
School records from Johnston’s personnel file, obtained in October through public records requests, detailed concerns reported to the school about his inappropriate relationship with a student. The district investigation in 2011 culminated in a personnel meeting with the written goal, according to school records, “To protect Curtis and the District.” As the head administrator, Rundle also had access to these files.
“When you become the principal of the high school, there isn’t a manual of all the things that have happened in the past at the high school, or same for the superintendent, but you do learn things along the way, and today, we learned new information based on a previous investigation that has led us to take new actions,” Rundle said during the Oct. 23 school board meeting.
During the school board meeting, board member Deborah Lurie asked Rundle why he publicly disclosed Willecke’s paid leave when that was not done for Twombley, who faced more serious allegations.
“Every situation is different,” Rundle said during the meeting, adding that an announcement wasn’t made for Twombley because the victim had not wanted the allegations made public.
The student newspaper at Mercer Island High School, the MIHS Islander, published an editorial on the front page of their back-to-school issue on Sept 26, criticizing the superintendent’s decision to keep the allegations against Twombley quiet. In the article, titled “We Wish We Had Known Sooner,” the students also questioned the veracity of the district’s efforts to identify more victims, given the decision to keep his resignation quiet.
“It seems, at a minimum, a thorough investigation would have begun with his students of that time,” they wrote.
At the Oct. 23 meeting, board member Jody Lee said her takeaway from InvestigateWest’s article regarding Johnston’s misconduct was that more people need to report when something seems off, but she did not voice concerns about how the previous administration had handled the reports they had received.
“I’m just going to implore our parent and student community that if you see something, say something,” she said.
“I see so many times, parents saying, ‘Well, I didn’t know if it was enough to look into it and do it,’” she added. “Well, let the district decide that.”
Numerous people made reports to the school about Johnston in 2011, but administrators brushed the concerns aside, according to school records. The school did not file a police report, which is best practice when sexual misconduct between a student and a teacher is alleged. Concerns had also been brushed aside in 2016, when an anonymous caller told the school district that Twombley was sending inappropriate texts to a sophomore student.
Lucy Dorer, a student representative on the board, urged school leaders to do more training with students on how to spot inappropriate behavior from adults and how to report it. She had Johnston as a teacher for two years and said the news was “horrifying.”
“You might not understand as a student, it’s not OK to have your teacher’s cellphone number,” she said. “If they don’t know that’s something they should report, they’re not going to report it.”
The school board is convening a new committee to conduct a broad review of policies and training, including how to better educate kids on boundary crossing and how to report teacher misconduct. The group will also look at how teacher misconduct is investigated once it’s reported to the school.
The first meeting, which is not open to the public, will be on Nov. 4.
John Anderson, a father of three students in the district, told the school board during the meeting that he was “shocked” that another teacher was accused of sexual misconduct.
“From a community standpoint, there seems to be a pattern of a lack of transparency, and I think that’s kind of the crux of the issue,” he said during the meeting. “It seems like these things happen, or come out in the media, then everyone is scrambling. I would just ask that there’s transparency around who knew what, and when.”
Dan Glowitz, a school board member who has been critical of the district’s handling of teacher sexual misconduct allegations and investigations, said that it’s now clear that Twombley’s alleged behavior points to broader issues. In addition to Twombley and Johnston, who both worked in the English department, teachers and students said educators working in an office dubbed "The Man Cave" often behaved inappropriately and crossed boundaries with students.
“It’s about a discriminatory and predatory culture in the English department that involved multiple teachers and persisted for years,” he said during the meeting. “These were teachers who had a lot of power, who held themselves out as gatekeepers to getting into the prestigious colleges and universities, and it’s pretty clear that the district administration let this go on for years.
“This isn’t some old problem from way back when, either,” he added. “These teachers were still working in the district until recently, and they’ve been around for decades.”
Moe K. Clark is a collaborative investigative reporter covering Washington state for InvestigateWest. Her position is supported by the Murrow News Fellowship, an initiative of Washington State University which aims to bolster coverage of civic issues in underserved communities around the state.
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Audio recordings and records obtained by InvestigateWest reveal sloppy investigations, omitted evidence and questions about whether cases were properly pursued
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Moe K. Clark
Moe K. Clark
Moe K. Clark
