| By Big Radio News Staff |
Two female teachers have resigned from Janesville Craig High School after a school district investigation reveals they sent racy text messages and lingerie photos to a student while on a class trip.
A Janesville School District investigative report obtained by WCLO News shows Craig business education teachers Alexsia Saldaris and Jennifer Larson resigned after they sent inappropriate Snapchat messages and images to a student during a field trip April 7 – April 9.
The two teachers told the student in the chats they wanted to cuddle, drink alcohol, and “have fun” with the student. In the messages, the district says, the teachers suggested the student could rope in another student on whatever “fun” the teachers had in store.
According to a school district investigative timeline on Saldaris’ and Larson’s conduct during the class trip: Saldaris, a first-year teacher, let the student drive a school district van around a parking lot and kissed the student. The investigation shows that day, Saldaris sent the student five Snapchat images of herself wearing lingerie and underwear.
Saldaris also suggested in separate texts that she and the student should meet up the following weekend.
The timeline states the district placed both Larson and Saldaris on leave April 11. That was the day after another teacher reported to the they saw students at school huddled in a circle, laughing, and viewing the Snapchat images of Saldaris in lingerie.
Saldaris later admitted to district officials she’d sent the Snapchat images and the racy chats to the student.
The district’s full discovery of the Snapchats and the teachers’ behavior during the class trip came a few days after the field trip ended.
The investigative timeline shows Larson initially went to a Craig school principal the day after the class trip ended, and reported Saldaris had allowed the student to drive a district vehicle around a parking lot.
The day after Larson reported that infraction, the district says Saldaris had sent a chat to the student suggesting they break off their relationship. This was apparently around the same time the Snapchat images of Saldaris in lingerie began circulating around the school via social media.
As the district launched an investigation, a teacher who’d become aware of the Snapchats and the teachers’ conduct blew the whistle to some “prominent” local residents, and those residents reported their concerns back to the district.
Larson, a decade-long district employee, admitted she’d also sent inappropriate chats to the student.
According to the district’s investigative notes, Larson also confessed that at some point earlier, she’d gotten in the middle of another student’s relationship with a girl. Larson said she’d taken efforts to make it clear Larson thought the girl was not “good enough” for the student.
Both and Saldaris and Larson resigned April 22. District investigative notes say the two had been strongly advised by an assistant superintendent to resign.
WCLO has learned the teachers’ resignations have been registered with the Wisconsin Department of Instruction. That’s standard procedure in such matters.
Janesville Police Department officials earlier said they had launched an investigation into the Snapchats and the circumstances around them to learn if any criminal conduct had occurred. So far, police have given no word publicly about that investigation.
Big Radio reporter/anchor Neil Johnson gathered information for this report.