(File Photos by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
MADISON, Wis. — State Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R–Pleasant Prairie) announced Thursday that she is drafting three bills aimed at strengthening student safety and cracking down on sexual misconduct and grooming by school staff. The move follows a Capital Times investigation that revealed the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) concealed hundreds of misconduct cases involving Wisconsin educators between 2018 and 2023.
“The recent revelations by The Capital Times paint an alarming picture of what’s happening in our schools,” Nedweski said. “When educators abuse their positions of trust and prey upon students—and when state officials conceal those actions from the public—it’s a complete betrayal of that trust. Our students deserve protection, transparency, and accountability.”
Nedweski said she began working on anti-grooming legislation following the case of former Kenosha Unified School District teacher Christian Enwright. She credited Kenosha County Eye for breaking the story that exposed Enwright’s predatory conduct toward a student. KCE remains the only media organization continuing to report on the case as it moves through post-conviction appeals and sentence modification requests.
Currently, Wisconsin has no specific statute criminalizing grooming behavior, which Nedweski argues leaves prosecutors with limited options even when evidence of manipulation or predation is clear. One of her proposed bills would create a new criminal offense for grooming minors for sexual activity, modeled after laws in other states to give prosecutors and law enforcement stronger tools to intervene.
She is also drafting legislation requiring school districts to adopt policies defining appropriate staff-student communication boundaries, as well as a measure to close a loophole that allows teachers under investigation for sexual misconduct to surrender their licenses and avoid further scrutiny.
“These bills will ensure that school districts are taking proactive steps to protect students while holding those who abuse their authority accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” Nedweski said.
An informational hearing on sexual misconduct and grooming in Wisconsin schools is scheduled for Thursday, October 23, at 11 a.m. before the Assembly Committee on Government Operations, Accountability, and Transparency, which Nedweski chairs. State Superintendent Jill Underly and representatives from law enforcement have been invited to testify.
Nedweski Drafts Bills to Crack Down on Sexual Misconduct and Grooming in Wisconsin Schools
MADISON, Wis. — State Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R–Pleasant Prairie) announced Thursday that she is drafting three bills aimed at strengthening student safety and cracking down on sexual misconduct and grooming by school staff. The move follows a Capital Times investigation that revealed the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) concealed hundreds of misconduct cases involving Wisconsin educators between 2018 and 2023.
“The recent revelations by The Capital Times paint an alarming picture of what’s happening in our schools,” Nedweski said. “When educators abuse their positions of trust and prey upon students—and when state officials conceal those actions from the public—it’s a complete betrayal of that trust. Our students deserve protection, transparency, and accountability.”
Nedweski said she began working on anti-grooming legislation following the case of former Kenosha Unified School District teacher Christian Enwright. She credited Kenosha County Eye for breaking the story that exposed Enwright’s predatory conduct toward a student, noting that the outlet remains the only media organization continuing to report on the case as it moves through post-conviction appeals and sentence modification requests.
Currently, Wisconsin has no specific statute criminalizing grooming behavior, which Nedweski argues leaves prosecutors with limited options even when evidence of manipulation or predation is clear. One of her proposed bills would create a new criminal offense for grooming minors for sexual activity, modeled after laws in other states to give prosecutors and law enforcement stronger tools to intervene.
She is also drafting legislation requiring school districts to adopt policies defining appropriate staff-student communication boundaries, as well as a measure to close a loophole that allows teachers under investigation for sexual misconduct to surrender their licenses and avoid further scrutiny.
“These bills will ensure that school districts are taking proactive steps to protect students while holding those who abuse their authority accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” Nedweski said.
An informational hearing on sexual misconduct and grooming in Wisconsin schools is scheduled for Thursday, October 23, at 11 a.m. before the Assembly Committee on Government Operations, Accountability, and Transparency, which Nedweski chairs. State Superintendent Jill Underly and representatives from law enforcement have been invited to testify.
Holly’s Family Reacts
“Holly” is the pseudonym Kenosha County Eye assigned to the victim in the Enwright case to protect her privacy. Holly’s parents told Kenosha County Eye they are very pleased that legislation inspired by their daughter’s case is moving forward. They said they hope to see these bills “make it all the way to the finish line soon,” calling the proposed reforms a vital step toward protecting other children from similar trauma.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
14 Responses
This is Obviously something that has been needed for some time.
Good to see our local representative take the lead
Finally someone with common sense. Kick all of these groomers out of the education system!
They’d have no teachers left!
Overall this sounds like a good idea. One thing I do wonder is how appropriate staff-student communication will be defined. Obviously anything that involves grooming students is not appropriate, but I hope the legislation would not open a path for excessive scrutiny of communication between staff and students.
Contrary to what people believe, most teachers are actually pretty dedicated towards their jobs and do what they do because they care about their students. The bad apples are a stain on the profession that unfortunately bring for the necessity of some type of legislation to minimize/present abuse. I’m always just extra concerned when legislation pertaining to any form of speech is introduced, whether or not it has good intentions
There should be zero “communication” between staff and students that doesn’t by policy go through emails !!
Email is traceable, transparent and easily seen by parents.
Your comment;
“ but I hope the legislation would not open a path for excessive scrutiny of communication between staff and students.” invites exactly what needs to be prevented !! Who the Hell are You ?!?!?
Communication between teachers and students should be limited to in person at school. If any out of class communication is needed, it should go through the parents. Just the idea that a teacher and student need “extra” communication signifies an issue in learning. And that is what the parents need to know about !!
I’d love to see body cams or at least live-feed cameras in the classroom.
Why the downvotes?
100’s of cases in Wisconsin between 2018-today. That’s not an issue, that’s an epidemic!
Thank you Amanda for creating legislation to protect our kids!
Shouldn’t “state officials” aka KUSD superintendent Dr. Weiss be held equally accountable for concealing criminal activity from the public? The piece of shit obviously cares more about his huge tax funded pay check than he does for the safety of our kids, which is his number 1 job btw. And he wants to blame low birth rates as the main reason KUSD enrollment is down….yeah, ok!
Plenty of open enrollment out of KUSD as well as RUSD in Racine. Not just birth rates.
Both Westosha Central and Union Grove High Schools are recipients of some of those students.
Parents are looking for options out of the Cities.
Evers and Underly need to go!!!! NOW!!!
But OUR SIDE doesn’t know how to turn out the masses !!
Trump won yet other conservative candidates on the same ticket didn’t.
Why ??
Why did some people, on our side not vote for Brittany Kinser or Brad Schimel ??
Neither got enough votes to get over the top.
You say Evers and Underly need to go. Yet how much work did we do to make that happen ??
This is on us as a party !!
We don’t turn out the votes ! We don’t watch the fraud ! We don’t change our election commission !
All things that might have happened if we would have ran someone other than Tim Michels !
Every one of these past elections mean so much today !! Why don’t we see that ?!?
Better yet, learn from it
AWOL is what most conservatives do best ………… unfortunately ….
Good job Kevin! I’ve been reading your series on the SCUMBAG that has prompted this essential bill. There is a lot of work to be done Amanda Nedweski (R–Pleasant Prairie). Write a strong bill, it’s more complicated than we know. Remember SANDUSKY and NASSAR were trusted members of their communities before their perverted and criminal actions were recognized!!
Underly must have an underlying reason, eh?