We’d been some of the biggest cheerleaders for Hillcrest Lutheran Academy. We were featured in a promotional video, recruited many families to attend, and were always sure to tell others how much we loved the school. 

But more than that, we enjoyed being involved. Chad was a substitute teacher for three years and helped with varsity boys basketball for two.

Since 2020, I (Amanda) spoke each year at the upper school chapel, and had at the lower school chapel several times. Each year I was invited to participate in Prayer Day, and on numerous occasions was asked to mentor students. Our family hosted ‘dorm dinners’ where students would come to our home, share a meal, and spend time worshipping and encouraging each other.

We wholeheartedly loved Hillcrest.

But it’s easy to subscribe to something and have no sense of what’s happening behind the scenes.

We never imagined our affinity for the school would all change, and not by our choice.

Almost 3 weeks went by after our initial meeting with administration. During this time it became apparent that the teacher’s family, friends, and the school were not viewing the actions of the teacher and the school’s handling of these actions as the problem, but us. We started hearing from close friends that employees at the school were making comments about our family as being the reason the teacher was no longer employed. 

Us; not the teacher touching students, showering with them, or making sexual comments.

We then received an email on 9/18/24 from the board chair asking us to meet with the board. We had already had a meeting that felt unfruitful, so we weren’t sure why they now wanted to meet.

Our response is long but clearly lays out why we were confused they wanted to meet. 

We respond saying, “Hi, Thanks for reaching out. Our concerns have been and still are the following:

1. Lack of transparency and no public ownership of an apology for the lack of action years ago and with many other reports being brought to administration. Honesty would show Hillcrest is far more interested in doing what is right and protecting these students rather than protecting Hillcrest’s and/or the teacher’s reputation

2. Due to the lack of transparency, families are unable to identify and allow for their own children’s safety, reporting and help they need. How are we ensuring the safety of Hillcrest students when families have no idea what has happened?

3. No communication shared with Hillcrest families at lower school.

4. No communication or reporting to proper channels when the first report was made. We did not follow our zero tolerance policy and in fact, the teacher was promoted to AD some time after reports had been made initially.

5. Seeking protection for the teacher and none for the victims or those who’ve reported.

6. Allowing the teacher to have ongoing access to our students/children via recess duty, being on campus having meetings, etc.

7. Zero response to known retaliation against students who spoke up against the teacher.

8. Zero response to rectify teachers who’ve outright stated these students are “framing the teacher.”

9. Minimizing the victims’ reports as being “their experience,” downplaying the severity and impact of their situation.

Since our meeting on September 13th, our confidentiality appears to have been leaked as well. Due to this, my family has now been retaliated against. 

Also, since our meeting on September 13th, we followed up with the principal and board chair roughly a couple weeks later on any updates or progress that had been made on the issues we brought up in our meeting. The principal responded saying that Hillcrest had no further action planned.

We are absolutely willing to meet, but we’re not sure what repeating what we’ve already shared would really accomplish. 

Lastly, if it made sense to meet in person, we’d want the teacher and his wife to be there as well. We want health, we want accountability and we want all people to be whole.

Thanks,

Chad Davison

After multiple emails back and forth with the board chair and him assuring us that the board wanted to hear our concerns, we set up a meeting for 9/26/24.

Meanwhile, the teacher no longer employed and under criminal investigation was on recess duty at the lower campus on 9/24/24.

I’ve taught for years that it’s impossible to have a healthy relationship with an unhealthy person.

But I don’t think I’ve ever expressed privately or publicly, perhaps due to my own lack of experience, that the same is true for systems.

You can meet face to face.

You can have hard conversations.

You can confront dysfunction, concerns, negligence, or abuse.

You can ask for change.

But when these efforts are fruitless, we are faced with a choice.

We met with members of the school board at their request. 

And this was the day we realized Hillcrest was not forthcoming with what had happened. They not only downplayed the situation and harm, but it also became clear that the school viewed us as the problem, not what had happened.

Even now it is difficult to discuss, as there were so many parts to this meeting that were both concerning and heartbreaking. Here is a small recap:

• In this meeting, while discussing a particular situation of a student, the head of the board stated, “It may be her experience versus what was actually done.”
• He continued saying, “I think one of the terms that you used and think in your context, it maybe makes a lot of sense, are victims. There is a lot of information that just shows that there really weren’t, that there are situations that that word would be very strong word to use.” 
• We responded stating that we absolutely would refer to these students as victims, as they experienced unwanted touch or unwanted situations and have since had to live with the repercussions.
• The school board held to the fact that they followed all policies and laws. When asked what policies they followed, they highlighted their Grievance Policy, which follows Matthew 18. We stated, “Matthew 18, that’s not for adult minor situations…that’s not like violating, you know, a student in a potentially sexual harassment type situation or misconduct. Mandated reporting trumps Matthew 18, and Matthew 18 does not involve minors being in any way violated. Any mandated reporter knows that.”
• When asked about why staff had not mandated a report as they are legally liable to, they stated, “You have to believe that there was a very specific abuse and then there’s like seven categories or eight categories of what is abuse. So during that review it was determined that it did not fall into that.”
• *I replayed this very moment so many times. How did our school board not know what constituted as abuse under the Minnesota Mandated Reporter Guidelines? 
• I responded saying, “I would highly disagree, but that’s okay. Again, any touching of any intimate part, even over clothing, even near intimate parts can be criminal in nature. And that’s not for us to investigate or determine, that’s for other people that are trained to do that. So even if there’s a question or belief that something could have, it’s not our job to be the ones to determine.”
• The Board Chair responded saying, “Yeah, it did not.” 
• For those who have read the police report, you know this is not the case. 
• The board chair further stated, “There’s no other actions we’re going to take. Let’s just say there was something that should have been reported, that could be taken up with law enforcement. But our actions are done from Hillcrest’s perspective.” 
• In addition, we asked the board about following their policy which states Hillcrest Lutheran Academy has a “zero-tolerance for inappropriate interactions between staff and students.” They did not have a response.
• When we asked the board again why the teacher was still allowed on campus during school hours while under criminal investigation, they responded saying, “We didn’t have any reason to keep him off of campus. The information that we unencumbered and received, there wasn’t a reason to be concerned on the safety of students by him being on campus.” 
• Could this be the case? We questioned whether it was possible that not all board members were aware of the reports of misconduct that had come in to leadership over the previous years. Perhaps they truly didn’t know what had happened? More on this, later.
• Perhaps the most frustrating part of this meeting was when a board member said, “I would very strongly ask, plead, to be very careful for how you talk about this with even your closest friends.” A similar statement was made by another board member, later in the meeting.

The board did not know that we had already heard from the investigator, who shared with us the exact opposite. The investigator had told us that the best thing parents can do is talk to other parents about the situation so that any potential victim can come forward. 

So why was the school trying to silence us? They told us the reason for meeting was to hear our concerns, but we’d been tricked. They wanted us to go away. Put this behind us. To look away.

This was the beginning of our goodbye. 

In the weeks and months that followed, we processed every layer of this meeting. We also held out hope that the findings of the police report would help promote the necessary changes for Hillcrest to move forward in a healthy manner.

Ending something you loathe is a relief.

But sometimes you leave something you love, not because you want to but because you know you have to. 

This grief is uniquely profound. 

We could no longer give our finances to a place that minimized so many kids’ experiences of harm.

We would not send our kids another year to a school where students weren’t believed or protected.

Would the culture change? We prayed it would. 

But we wouldn’t be there to find out. 

All of our efforts with the school had been exhausted.

We turned our attention to helping the victims we knew, and advocating for our children.