The orchestra director for KUSD’s Indian Trail High School and Academy is behind bars tonight. Nathan R. Gardner, 27, of Racine, WI was the subject of an eleven day investigation that concluded he committed several felonies. The Kenosha Police Student Resource Officer (SRO) at the high school was made aware of the disturbing allegations on October 26, 2023. KPD investigated and later learned that the allegations occurred in the Kenosha County Sheriff’s jurisdiction. Detectives from the Kenosha Sheriff’s Office began the investigation.
According to the Kenosha Unified School District, Gardner was placed on administrative leave on or before November 1, 2023. Tanya Ruder, the district’s Chief Communications Officer didn’t respond to KCE’s inquiry as to the exact date he was placed on leave.
Gardner was arrested Tuesday morning following a search warrant, according to a law enforcement source. KCE was made aware of these allegations last week, but delayed publication as to not jeopardize an ongoing investigation.
According to a source close to the investigation, Gardner had a relationship with and was sexting with a 15-year-old boy. The boy was a Freshman at Indian Trail High school when they met on the “hook-up” site “Grindr.” According to its website, Grindr is the world’s largest “social networking app” for gay, bi, trans, and queer people.The child’s profile said he was 18, but later told Gardner he was only 15. The two met in person at the teen’s Somers home when Gardner brought him ice cream. The two kissed. The two would later send sexually explicit photos of each other. The boy later learned that Gardner was a teacher at ITA. Gardner told the boy not to tell anyone. The two maintained contact until the teen’s Junior year when they eventually stopped talking. Gardner used an alias on Grindr and was hesitant at first to send a photo of his face, but later did.
The Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department detective bureau asked Kenosha County DA Michael Graveley to charge Gardner with:
Felony Child Enticement
Felony Use of Computer To Facilitate Sex Crime
Felony Exposing Child to Harmful Material, and
Misdemeanor Sending of Obscene Email Messages
The DA will likely also charge Gardner with possession of child pornography if the photos are still on Gardner’s phone. During the search warrant, Detectives discovered a Samsung Cell phone with popsocket, a Samsung tablet, a KUSD MacBook PRO, and an HP all-in-one PC. The boy did tell detectives that he believed Gardner kept the child pornpography on his cellphone.
Gardner, who is openly gay, has sent school-wide emails calling himself “a gay.”
Gardner is expected to be formally charged tomorrow at 1:00 pm. Of course, KCE will be there to update you. This is a breaking story.
95 Responses
Always the school’s. Always lbgtp.
You’re were always a bltch…
wut
Ok groomer
Heather likes kids being groomed!
Grow up. 🙄
When you twist sexuality into something ugly and unnatural, which bears no offspring, you need to infect other people’s children with your poison to propagate it. People like this guy need to be made examples of…keep LGBTQ+PDFSNFRKS away from public school!
You need to be ashamed of yourself.. LGBTQ people are not all like that..
It’s not fair to label all lgbtq+ as predators. This happens WAY more often with straight men and women. Homophobia isn’t the answer in times like this. You should never shame people for their sexuality only their actions and this is a disgusting action, but you should never resort to homophobia.
I go to that school-
both people are in the wrong, the kid is lucky he’s still a minor. If I were the boy, I’d leave this country, down right embarrassing
I’ve had lessons with him before. It was during the summer of 6th/7th grade. He wasn’t bad of a teacher, except being strict at times. However, now seeing that he had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old boy, I see him in a completely different way then what I saw at Bullen.
Ive also had lessons and summer orchestra alone with him before and seeing what happened now makes me sick.
Just like all people, there are exceptions, but for the most part….Yes. They. Are…like that!
Lol my sister does too
Not always the schools.
It’s not always lgbtq.
I can’t believe he would do something like this
Keep us posted.
At least KUSD appears to have done something this time.
Met on Grindr… The dating app that is featured in one of the “porn” books available in KUSD libraries. Awesome….
Met on Grindr, a dating app featured in one of the “porn” books available to our kids in the KUSD libraries. Awesome…
I didn’t mean to post 3 xs. Kevin, feel free to delete 2 of my replies!
stfu
No I won’t groomer.
You should post it 1,000 times! Over and over and over!
Good idea!
Met on Grindr? The app that was featured in one of KUSD’s “porn” books??? UNBELIEVABLE!!!
Disgusting! These schools are a mess. The pornography and the predators who put it there and capitalize on the damage it does need to be thrown out NOW. Why can these LGBT-obsessed people not keep their hands off of children’s minds and, in this latest of many cases, bodies?
You’re right, it is disgusting and I blame the woke administration who supports, enables and normalizes this behavior.
it sure does! The entire KUSD from the top down needs a complete housecleaning. At this point, it is advisable for parents to pull their kids from public school and either enroll them in parochial schools or homeschool them. We need to defund public education
Not all parochial schools are good either. Just refer back to previous articles on this site. The church at St. Joe’s school had a pride flag behind Jesus.
It’s not a pride flag for several years they have put that up it’s just a colorful flag they use during the
Month of All Souls’ Day for dia de los muertos…this is what I hate rainbows are fun and little girls love them but you can’t have anything rainbow now without this correlation..annoying
true but there are much better morals all around than in KUSD
Homeschool!
Let’s not forget about the priests who systematically raped thousands of children and were protected by an international criminal organization. Lock up all the real pedophiles like this guy and the church thugs instead of demonizing the schools.
Only a fraction of what government run schools produce.
Seriously? Get your head out of the sand. The catholic church is the largest organized sex crime cartel to ever exist.
check your stats again–it is the public schools and protestant churches
You sound very backwards. Belong to Mothers for Liberty? No liberty in their club of hate
Ask me why I homeschool…
Holy shit I thought it was county supervisor Zach Stock at first lmao
This is so disgusting and egregious and is what happens when you allow perversion in the schools. “Let’s Talk about it” is one of the books pulled from the library system, which features how to get into the perverted sex app, Grindr. This guy is a predator and it sure seems like the Kenosha Schools collect the freaks who like to prey on children. These people need to undergo a much more thorough background check before being allowed near your most precious resource. Children are supposed to learn to be beneficial members of society while in school, not how to be groomed for sex acts.
you can never have done it before or gotten caught for it.. so guess what a background check doesn’t do shit karen
He was also going into one of the elementary schools as well…. He was teaching there as well.
What’s going on with the predator from the YMCA that also worked for KUSD, what about the basketball coach predator? How many of these sickos does KUSD HAVE?
His specialty was the skin flute.
Great on piano, sucks on the organ!
This seems to be happening alot at this school, Isn’t this like the 3 or 4th time that a teacher at this school has been involved with a current or former student ,
maybe the entire school needs to be looked at …
I think the 4th!
How is it, that all these perverts end up at Indian Trail High School??
What makes you think that they are only at ITA? They are just the dumb ones getting caught. Don’t kid yourselves if you think that is the only school it is happening at. All of the schools are under the same woke KUSD administration.
I know of 2 At Lakeview in the past 3 years.
Don’t you have to be 18 to be on those apps?
America is destined for destruction from within
How is it that these perverts keep getting put at Indian Trail High School?? Is it because ITA is more diverse than any of our other High Schools??
Seems a bit odd, that the majority of the teachers and/or staff that are being placed at ITA are all sickos!! How many arrests has it been for these perverted teachers that are preying on students??
Diversity = Death
Maybe that’s where they send all the teachers who engage in this misconduct, kind of like the Catholic parishes moved their priests around.
Majority are not sickos.
Majority of who? The alphabet group? I’d have to say you are wrong on that one, but it doesn’t surprise me.
In Iran, this guy would e beheaded. They also condemn to death, people who write books critical of their religion.
Many in our country apparentgly want to emulate Iran.
Reminds me of a fellow I once knew. He used to be a cork sacker.
he lowkey kinda hot
Sick.
Got me dead fr 💀
This epidemic was beginning to take root in public schools 30 years ago.
There’s NO SAVING THESE PLACES.
People …….. make your mind up.
Democrats and the left are not far from accepting this and forcing the rest of us to accept this as normal.
Doubtful
It’s not just a one party pushing for all this stuff. Rhinos are all in on it too! Wake up! It’s WE THE PEOPLE, not We the “PARTY” group! Stand up, show up to meetings if you are able and make your voices heard!
Where is the leadership in our community? This needs to be reversed and now not later.
It’s time to remove all acceptance of support and leave it out of the classrooms. There were no issues back when all this wasn’t open and in the spotlight. Maybe it is time to revert back to the past and don’t openly talk about all this. Educate the kids with reading, actual science, math, history and writing. Leave all the social crap out of the curriculum. Also get into more tech and trade education. Then we will be getting more productive kids leaving high school. Not liberalized zombies who have no critical thought processing.
So you think child sexual exploitation is new? I have a bridge to sell you. This is as old as time itself.
PUT JESUS BACK IN THE SCHOOLS.
Amen to that
Pedophiles are NOT only gay people. Can I remind you all of the Catholic priests and the Vatican that hid its pedo problem for WHO KNOWS HOW LONG!!! Stop with the gay hate. It’s PEOPLE OF ALL KINDS THAT CAN BE SICK. In my own personal experience I’ve seen straight white men be the face of this kind of crime. So shut the hell UP already with blaming the LGBT+ community!!!
I say let’s castrate all the pedophiles and see if that helps with this problem. I’ve never been one for capitol punishment but this needs it.
First offense- castration
Second offense- genitalia removal
Third offense- death penalty
No adult has the right to take the innocence of a child and cause trauma.
Well kusd and the left want books that describe this sick shit so I’m sure they will protest for him
No wonder your name is clowns.
And you and others need to be realistic
A bunch of ignorant comments made by horrible people on a gross persons ridiculous article. Color me shocked.
An article alerting the public to a predator is ridiculous? Talk about ignorant! You probably have a rainbow flag in your window if not child porn in your possession. They seem to go hand-in-hand!!
Ignorant comments, ridiculous article? HE IS A PEDOPHILE! Are you cool with that?
Let’s NOT make this a hate column. And you know what, I am not gay but I sure give them the right to live their lives as they want. What this man did was wrong. His crime is picking a minor who lied – lied to join the website and lied to the teacher.
Yes. Good idea, blame the minor. Maybe read the update to this article and learn this man knew full well that this kid was a minor. #TypicalLiberal
F them all
I love how none of y’all are asking why a kid was on a dating website for adults and if the kid found out that he was a teacher at the school then he should have never meet up with him or done anything g with him if he even did that for all we know the kid might have done this to get him fired for some unknown reason but all you guys are thinks about is how the teacher messed up and n it the kid even thought he’s on a dating website underaged. I’ve meet the teacher and he’s a wonderful person and a good orchestra teacher I don’t think he did any of this and also people who make articles always make this worse then it really is to pull people in.
Well the law disagrees with you. He is now facing major time for this and child porn. Great guy!
Blame the kid? You are part of the problem.
Nathan is a multiple time offender. You are part of the problem with a response like that. Shame on you.
Kids innocent. Pedo isnt. Plain and simple
This isn’t the first offense for him. Baffling he got a teaching position. Look him up, he’s from Berea, Ohio.
Wow.
Can you provide a link? I am not able to find anything.
I went to school with Nathan. He has done this more than once and got caught by a “YouTuber”. Sad thing is this could have and should have been avoided. How he got a job after being publicly made aware of is beyond me.. watch your kids close for creeps like this.
He got caught at a Walmart maybe 5 years ago meeting up a child supposedly 16. Same accusations and had McDonald’s with him. I wish I could find it.. such a shame.
Is this documented anywhere? Curious.
He was annoying asl