CV NEWS FEED // The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office in Colorado recently launched a criminal investigation at Columbine High School after school officials falsely claimed that a student was homeless so that she could move in with a lesbian teacher who allegedly groomed her as a minor.
A CBS investigation from February found that “school emails obtained through an open records request show counselors purposefully kept the parents in the dark while they helped their daughter declare herself homeless so she could move in with a teacher.”
“This is not a story, this is a nightmare,” the mother, whom CBS did not name for privacy reasons, told CBS News.
CBS states that the mother alleges that 10 school officials helped her daughter run away from home with a predatory teacher.
The mother first discovered paperwork alleging her daughter’s homelessness in May 2022. CBS states that she also found a letter that described her daughter kissing her social studies teacher, Leann Kearney.
“If I would not have found this paperwork underneath her bed, I would have had no idea that this was happening behind our back,” the mother said.
An investigator hired by the school district found that Kearney began grooming the student as early as 2019. The investigator states that in 2019 Kearney also asked a colleague how to begin the process to declare a student homeless.
The student’s mother found a federal form dated July 2021 that declared her daughter as an “unaccompanied homeless youth.” CBS notes that this date corresponds with the beginning of Jefferson County School District’s fiscal year. Since 2021, the district has received at least $405,000 in funding for homeless students.
School officials signed the homelessness papers in April 2022 and allegedly formed a plan to help her run away.
After the student’s mother discovered the papers, she asked Kearney to stop contacting her daughter. She had discovered thousands of texts and phone calls between the two.
The mother reached out to Columbine Principal Scott Christy about Kearney’s inappropriate relationship with her daughter in June 2022. Christy dismissed her concerns and told her that the teacher “helps kids navigate their sexuality.”
The mother said she was shocked by Christy’s response and described to CBS her reaction.
“So you’ve just been given information that of some sort, there’s some type of inappropriate relationship happening between an adult and a child,” she said, “and you can say in the same two-hour meeting that she takes a special interest in helping kids navigate their sexuality.”
A Safe2Tell report was filed alleging the relationship was of a sexual nature.
The school investigator stated that Christy, however, treated the situation as a “boundary violation,” did not tell Kearney to stop, and, since Kearney was on military leave, waited six months to address the situation.
In January 2023, the student moved in with another teacher while Kearney was still on military leave. In March 2023, she went missing, and later in the year, she showed up in California with Kearney.
Throughout the spring of 2023, the student’s mother demanded that the district investigate Kearey, and in the summer she urged the Colorado Department of Education to revoke Kearney’s teaching license.
In the fall of 2023, the school district’s chief legal counsel did nothing to ensure Kearney was barred from teaching, though they did call the case “egregious,” according to CBS.
The district stated that it took every step to remove Kearney; however, she was not fired, and instead the school accepted her resignation. The district argued: “If we had not accepted her resignation, then she would have remained on leave pending a formal termination process that can take several months.”
Moreover, the school’s initial Title IX plan would have allowed Kearney back into the classroom, CBS reports. They decided to treat the incident as “serious workplace misconduct” rather than a Title IX violation.
The school district decided to launch an “after-action review” this year, and now, the Sheriff’s Office is investigating all involved officials, not just Kearney.
Kearney is still under investigation though the police have not yet pressed charges. It took two years after the mother’s initial complaints to get the school to revoke Kearney’s teaching license.
The student’s mother stated to CBS that she and her husband will never stop fighting for their daughter.
“Nothing has or ever will change the unconditional love we have for our daughter. Nothing,” she said. “She was failed by Jeffco Schools, her predatory teacher, and 10 mandated reporters, but she will never be failed by her family. We have been fighting for her every day for 3 years and we will never stop.”
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