Former KC-area superintendent groomed girls for sex, lawsuit says. Was misconduct ignored?

Former Lone Jack School District Superintendent Matthew Tarwater resigned late last year when confronted with allegations that he preyed on two female high school students.

And in a civil lawsuit filed in federal court last week, two high-ranking school officials were accused of covering up Tarwater’s inappropriate, unprofessional and possibly illegal conduct.

No criminal charges have been brought forth in the case. But the suit, filed on behalf of a former student identified in court documents as S.L., claims Tarwater is a sexual predator who groomed female students for sex, including S.L.

Reached by phone, Tarwater declined to comment.

The Lone Jack School District was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, which alleges that School Board President Kellie Roth and Lone Jack High School Principal Kathy Butler actively assisted Tarwater in covering up his misconduct.

Late last year, Butler replaced Tarwarter on an interim basis. In a statement sent on behalf of the district, Butler denied accusations that district leadership knew of Tarwater’s alleged conduct, which court records described as “creepy.”

A federal jury will determine the merits of allegations that Tarwater touched, rubbed, hugged and eventually had sex with S.L. when she turned 21. He deserves to have his day in court.

The suit also makes a damning accusation that district officials deliberately failed to investigate or take action amid reports and complaints about Tarwater’s conduct.

If the claims are true, Lone Jack school officials must be held accountable for failing to protect students.

The allegations were serious enough that Tarwater resigned in late 2019 when confronted, said William Odle, the now-23-year-old woman’s attorney.

“Our client is a young woman who was completely failed by Lone Jack school officials who should have been looking out for her,” Odle said in a written statement to The Star Editorial Board.“Instead, she suffered years of abuse while the district turned a blind eye to multiple violations of district policies designed to prevent exactly what happened here.

What did school officials know and when?

S.L., the plaintiff, suffers from a myriad of clinically diagnosed ailments including depression and chronic anxiety. Tarwater allegedly groomed her for sex starting when she was a 16-year-old sophomore at Lone Jack High School, according to the suit.

The two had sexual contact in 2018, but, the lawsuit says, the sex wasn’t consensual “because (the plaintiff) had been subjected to years of predatory sexual grooming.”

Before he stepped down, Tarwater allegedly groomed another Lone Jack High student identified in court documents as K.P. for sex.

Odle contends that the Lone Jack School District, which sits about 30 miles southeast of Kansas City, refused to share its internal investigative report or findings with S.L., despite promising that an outcome letter would be issued to her after a school board meeting in January.

The district’s statement expressed dismay at the accusation. But as of Monday’s board meeting, no public accounting of an internal investigation existed.

“The Lone Jack School District is disappointed by the many mischaracterizations included throughout the lawsuit,” the statement read. “In particular, the District strongly disagrees with the misleading claims made about our current Board and administration as well as about the plaintiff’s experience at our school before she graduated almost 5 years ago.”

The question remains: Why have district officials failed to turn over the report? Transparency and accountability are paramount to ensure that schoolchildren are protected.

In Missouri, information about wrongdoing by educators is difficult to come by. Details about disciplinary actions against teachers are not shared in an online database; only the status of the certification is available. Information about teacher misconduct is not generally shared among districts.

“These same school officials have now allowed this man quietly to resign and will not tell us what, if any, steps they’ve taken to ensure this doesn’t happen somewhere else to another student,” Odle wrote. “Our client is determined to make sure what happened to her does not happen again.”

In December 2011, Tarwater resigned as a middle school history teacher and eighth-grade basketball coach in the Harrisonville School District, according to the federal lawsuit. He paid $6,000 as part of his separation from Harrisonville.

Harrisonville officials, citing privacy laws, declined to say why Tarwater stepped down. A short time later, he was hired as principal at Lone Jack High School, despite having no prior administrative experience.

Tarwater was appointed superintendent in 2016, according to an online Linkedin profile that was taken down this week.

Butler, Roth and the entire school board have declined to explain why Tarwater was allowed to resign instead of being fired in the wake of allegations of physical and emotional abuse. The lawsuit contends he was given a seven-day option to step down.

“The Administration takes seriously allegations of discrimination and promptly investigates whenever complaints are made,” district officials wrote in their statement.

Lone Jack school officials can stand behind vague public statements. And Tarwater can evade public comment until a court hearing.

But if allegations of sexual abuse and grooming are proven in court, then both the district and Tarwater must pay a heavy price for the emotional, physical and psychological damage inflicted upon the plaintiff and others.

This story was originally published March 11, 2020 at 5:00 AM.