Mercer Island superintendent knew of teacher sexual misconduct allegations despite public statements

In October 2025, Mercer Island School District Superintendent Fred Rundle issued a press release saying that allegations detailed in an InvestigateWest story published that day were new to him.

“We learned of an allegation of sexual misconduct involving a former Mercer Island High School teacher, Curtis Johnston, and a female student who graduated in 2011,” Rundle wrote.

Rundle, who has held various leadership positions at the district since 2013 and became the superintendent in 2022, repeated a week later that he learned about the allegations “in real time.” And once again in January, he wrote in a press release that the district learned “at the same time as the community, through the InvestigateWest article.”

But records obtained by InvestigateWest suggest that Rundle knew more about the allegations against Johnston than he let on publicly. Two months before the article was published, Shaun Harman, an official with the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the state’s education oversight agency, spoke with Rundle about the teacher, who had abruptly retired and asked to surrender his teaching license.

“Mr. Rundle advised that there had been rumors in the past that Johnston had been inappropriate in some manner with a student in years past but there had been no confirmed or proven allegations,” Harman later wrote in an email summarizing the August 2025 phone call. “Mr. Rundle, for Johnston, did not provide any investigation material and I had been informed that no such material was available from the district.”

Rundle did not provide Harman with records contained in Johnston’s employee file, which detailed serious concerns that the district briefly investigated and brushed aside in 2011 about Johnston engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a high school student.

The timing of Johnston’s retirement raised eyebrows: It happened less than a week after InvestigateWest and Mercer Island Reporter revealed how the district had tried to keep quiet sexual misconduct allegations against one of Johnston’s colleagues in the English department, Gary “Chris” Twombley. Harman, records show, called Johnston’s decision to retire and surrender his teaching license an “extremely rare” move for a teacher who was not under investigation or facing criminal prosecution. The agency normally wouldn’t accept a surrender if a teacher was under investigation, Harman wrote.

In a statement to InvestigateWest for this story, Rundle disagreed that his public statements were inconsistent with what he told the state investigator. He said that he did not know of the 2011 allegations against Johnston when he spoke to Harman — the “rumors” he referenced were about social media posts that had been circulating. And he said that although he became aware of the 2011 file “between the end of August and late October when your story about Mr. Johnston was published,” the story included information that went beyond what was shared with the district in 2011. 

Rundle declined to answer follow-up questions about why he didn’t review Johnston’s employment file before talking with the state investigator, or report the concerns he’d seen on social media to law enforcement. 

“Your questions regarding Mr. Johnston are not easily answered at this time because the district is currently involved in a legal proceeding involving him,” Rundle wrote in an email to InvestigateWest. 

The former student who told InvestigateWest that Johnston began grooming her for a sexual relationship starting in 2011 during her senior year of high school filed a $13.4 million claim against the school district in February, alleging administrators failed to intervene and protect her from being targeted, groomed and sexually abused. The case is pending.

Tom Acker, a parent and former Mercer Island City Council member, had spoken at a school board meeting following the Twombley story and later emailed the school district asking them to look into the allegations against Johnston and other teachers circulating online.

“In my conversations with students at the school, even some teachers, the pattern was clearly there,” he said. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And I think that they should have, at the very least, done a cursory investigation.”

The district’s investigation of Johnston in 2011 was sparked by concerns shared by at least two people — a church counselor and a fellow student — regarding Johnston’s close relationship with the student. Records show the district took Johnston's word that he was merely acting as a “father figure” and “family friend” to the teenager, and imposed nominal discipline. The sexual relationship continued through the student’s freshman year of college, the student said, and Johnston went on to teach for another 14 years. 

The district records obtained by InvestigateWest from Johnston’s personnel file include the former student’s redacted name and the year the district received concerns about the teacher. The records also detailed the allegations against Johnston, many of which were repeated in Reddit comments that popped up last summer, following Johnston’s abrupt retirement. Multiple parents had implored Rundle and other school leaders to look into those anonymous reports on Reddit during a school board meeting on Aug. 14. 

“Unfortunately, a lot of what I’ve seen or have been drawn to, either through anonymous tips, through social media and others, haven’t given me enough to do an in-depth kind of look, because I don’t have enough information,” Rundle said during the meeting. 

The social media posts prompted InvestigateWest to look into Johnston further and track down the former student with whom Johnston allegedly had a relationship. During another interview in early October, Rundle and school board member Cristina Martinez were informed that InvestigateWest’s story was focused on allegations against Johnston, the most serious being that he had “been sleeping with a senior and that they dated for a year and a half.” 

Rundle said there still was not enough information to look into Johnston, but said he’d remain “alert.”

Later that month, the day the story about Johnston was published, Rundle told the community he was taking immediate action, including reporting Johnston to local police and launching a third-party investigation, which was closed two months later with no findings.

A FAQ page on the Mercer Island School District website says Rundle had not been made aware of the specific allegations regarding Johnston during his earlier interview with InvestigateWest.

“In an interview with the Superintendent several weeks before the story ran, the reporter indicated that another former student had spoken with her, but she declined to share identifying information,” the post reads. “Once the District became aware of the new allegation through the article, an investigation was opened immediately.” 

During a webinar hosted by the Mercer Island School District and the Mercer Island Parent Teacher Association Council on Oct. 29, Rundle was asked why Johnston’s retirement didn’t trigger an investigation or alert the district to look back at his file, where they would have seen the previous sexual misconduct concerns. 

“When he retired … there was not an allegation or someone who had come forward with a tangible, at least from my time, claim of sexual abuse or sexual misconduct,” Rundle said. 

“Some people, they felt that they did make a report, and they felt that the report did not trigger an investigation,” PTA Council President Sarah Karim said. 

If there have been instances of a failure to report, Rundle responded, “There are implications, both professionally (and) criminally.”

“We have to really dig into this,” the superintendent said.

In Washington, all school employees, including superintendents, are mandatory reporters under state law, meaning they are required to report “any reasonable cause to believe a child or vulnerable adult” has suffered abuse or neglect. Reports are to be made to Child Protective Services or local law enforcement within 48 hours of learning of the abuse. Failing to report is classified as a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and/or a $5,000 fine, though it’s rare for an educator or school administrator to be charged. 

The former principal, John Harrison, who received the complaints back in 2011 regarding Johnston’s conduct, had not reported the concerns to the state or to local law enforcement. Harrison is now the chief of staff for policy, legal and public affairs for the nearby Bellevue School District. Harrison has previously declined to answer InvestigateWest questions about how he handled the complaints against Johnston.

Rundle’s first report to authorities came in October, two months after he spoke to Harman, the state investigator. 

Mercer Island School District had placed David Willecke, a high school teacher who shared an office with Johnston, on paid leave in October 2025 for potentially failing to report Johnston’s behavior. But he was later cleared and allowed to return to the classroom in January 2026.

The Mercer Island School District has convened a new Student Safety & Well-being Committee, led by Rundle, to conduct a broad review of policies and training, including issues related to mandatory reporting and the school district’s procedures for handling complaints. School board members will hear a presentation from the 35-member committee on June 25, along with a presentation from an abuse-prevention consultant hired by the district to review the school’s current policies.

“I don’t have much faith that the (student safety) committee is going to come back with anything that shouldn’t have already been there, or isn’t already there and just wasn’t followed,” said Acker, whose three kids attended Mercer Island High School. 

He’s especially skeptical given that the committee is being spearheaded by some of the same school leaders he believes failed to properly investigate and report past concerns, including Rundle and Erin Battersby, the assistant superintendent of compliance, legal affairs and human resources.

He and other parents have asked the district to commission an independent investigation into how past instances have been handled.

“Not a charade safety committee, but a real investigation from an outside source to come in and look if there were any failings in the administration,” Acker said. “And neither the school board nor the leadership of the school district wants to have anybody in their own proverbial henhouse.”