Teh One Who Knocks
05-09-2018, 11:18 AM
By Andrew Marra - Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
https://i.imgur.com/KJU4liZ.jpg
JUPITER — For six years, suspicions persisted about Kenneth Phillips’ relationship with his adolescent students at Jupiter Middle School and his seeming infatuation with bare feet.
Nearly a decade after the first concerns were documented, the 60-year-old former teacher has now been compelled to give up his teaching license.
His co-workers began worrying about his behavior as early as 2009, when a school technician told police he walked into the English teacher’s classroom unannounced and spotted him with a student in his classroom, the lights dimmed and Phillips’ shoes off.
In 2012, a teacher concerned about Phillips’ overly friendly relations with students reported him to police, saying she had seen him with a student’s bare feet in his lap.
School district police learned that Phillips permitted students to remove their socks in class and store them in his mini-refrigerator. Phillips told police the strange practice was his students’ idea, one that they initially did to mock his sandal-wearing tendencies before coming to enjoy the feel of chilled socks.
The teacher acknowledged he encouraged students to hang out in his classroom before school, let them sit in class barefoot and admitted to at least one instance of rubbing a student’s bare feet in class.
But no student would utter a bad word about the popular teacher. Two separate police investigations found no evidence of a crime. He was warned not to touch students’ feet and allowed to keep teaching.
That changed in 2015, when a former student hired a lawyer and changed his story about his interactions with Phillips.
His family’s lawsuit, filed in February 2015, accused Phillips of having a “sexual foot fetish” and alleged that school district leaders knew, based on the concerns raised in 2012, that he “was grooming and sexually harassing boys in the school.” Cooperating with the family’s lawyer was the teacher who reported Phillips’ behavior in 2012.
“Despite this actual notice,” the suit stated, “they failed to engage in any meaningful corrective measures to protect the boys in the school.”
Days after the suit was filed, the student contacted a school district police officer he knew to change his account.
Questioned formally by police once more, the student — by then enrolled at Jupiter High School — said that Phillips had encouraged him to masturbate in class and would massage the student’s feet while appearing to rub his own penis, police records show.
The student’s story continued to evolve, though. After saying that Phillips had never touched him sexually, he changed his account a few months later, saying that Phillips had touched his crotch numerous times, Phillips had instructed him to put his feet in his lap, and that Phillips would rub his feet with lotion, records show.
Asked why he had denied any inappropriate sexual contact the first two times police interviewed him, the student — who was not identified in police records or the lawsuit — said he distrusted the police officers and was afraid of being labeled a homosexual.
Based on the student’s new allegations, school district police submitted their case to prosecutors for Phillips to be arrested on charges of lewd or lascivious exhibition.
But records show prosecutors rejected the case because the student’s version of what happened had changed. Phillips did not respond to a call for comment this week.
In November 2015, the school board agreed to settle the student’s lawsuit for $250,000. Phillips, a school district employee since 1986, retired the same month the suit was settled, as the district began termination procedures.
In a settlement agreement in April with the state’s Education Practices Commission, Phillips agreed to renounce his Florida teaching license and promised not to ever apply for one again.
https://i.imgur.com/KJU4liZ.jpg
JUPITER — For six years, suspicions persisted about Kenneth Phillips’ relationship with his adolescent students at Jupiter Middle School and his seeming infatuation with bare feet.
Nearly a decade after the first concerns were documented, the 60-year-old former teacher has now been compelled to give up his teaching license.
His co-workers began worrying about his behavior as early as 2009, when a school technician told police he walked into the English teacher’s classroom unannounced and spotted him with a student in his classroom, the lights dimmed and Phillips’ shoes off.
In 2012, a teacher concerned about Phillips’ overly friendly relations with students reported him to police, saying she had seen him with a student’s bare feet in his lap.
School district police learned that Phillips permitted students to remove their socks in class and store them in his mini-refrigerator. Phillips told police the strange practice was his students’ idea, one that they initially did to mock his sandal-wearing tendencies before coming to enjoy the feel of chilled socks.
The teacher acknowledged he encouraged students to hang out in his classroom before school, let them sit in class barefoot and admitted to at least one instance of rubbing a student’s bare feet in class.
But no student would utter a bad word about the popular teacher. Two separate police investigations found no evidence of a crime. He was warned not to touch students’ feet and allowed to keep teaching.
That changed in 2015, when a former student hired a lawyer and changed his story about his interactions with Phillips.
His family’s lawsuit, filed in February 2015, accused Phillips of having a “sexual foot fetish” and alleged that school district leaders knew, based on the concerns raised in 2012, that he “was grooming and sexually harassing boys in the school.” Cooperating with the family’s lawyer was the teacher who reported Phillips’ behavior in 2012.
“Despite this actual notice,” the suit stated, “they failed to engage in any meaningful corrective measures to protect the boys in the school.”
Days after the suit was filed, the student contacted a school district police officer he knew to change his account.
Questioned formally by police once more, the student — by then enrolled at Jupiter High School — said that Phillips had encouraged him to masturbate in class and would massage the student’s feet while appearing to rub his own penis, police records show.
The student’s story continued to evolve, though. After saying that Phillips had never touched him sexually, he changed his account a few months later, saying that Phillips had touched his crotch numerous times, Phillips had instructed him to put his feet in his lap, and that Phillips would rub his feet with lotion, records show.
Asked why he had denied any inappropriate sexual contact the first two times police interviewed him, the student — who was not identified in police records or the lawsuit — said he distrusted the police officers and was afraid of being labeled a homosexual.
Based on the student’s new allegations, school district police submitted their case to prosecutors for Phillips to be arrested on charges of lewd or lascivious exhibition.
But records show prosecutors rejected the case because the student’s version of what happened had changed. Phillips did not respond to a call for comment this week.
In November 2015, the school board agreed to settle the student’s lawsuit for $250,000. Phillips, a school district employee since 1986, retired the same month the suit was settled, as the district began termination procedures.
In a settlement agreement in April with the state’s Education Practices Commission, Phillips agreed to renounce his Florida teaching license and promised not to ever apply for one again.