The Portland school board hired a hand-picked team of investigators, including two former prosecutors, Tuesday to take a deep look at the case of a veteran educator who evaded sexual misconduct allegations for years.
The board's unanimous move came in response an August Oregonian/OregonLive investigation, which found that top district officials protected the accused teacher, not students.
The tone of Tuesday's meeting was grave.
"The Mitch Whitehurst case represents a systemic failure to protect students," began school board chair Julia Brim-Edwards, who teared up when talking about how troubling she felt the matter was and what she felt the district owed the public.
The board picked Amy Joseph Pedersen of the law firm Stoel Rives to oversee the investigation. Her outside team is made up of Bob Weaver and Joy Ellis of the law firm Garvey Schubert Barer and retired Multnomah County Chief Deputy District Attorney Norm Frink, who worked as a prosecutor for more than 35 years.
The scope of the investigation is wide. The board has charged the team with identifying who knew what when as well as what policies failed, why they failed and what should change.
For example, the board asks: "Did any PPS employee(s) fail to comply with mandatory reporting requirements or violate any policies, laws or ethics rules? If so, who and when? Were there any consequences for those failures? Did any of those failures have licensure implications?"
See the full scope of the investigation here (PDF).
The investigation, including recommendations for fixes to school district policies and procedures, is slated to be completed by the end of the year. The board agree to pay up to $125,000.
A woman whom the district twice disbelieved, but whose story ultimately constituted grounds to revoke Whitehurst's license for sexual misconduct, told The Oregonian/OregonLive she liked the questions outlined in the investigation's scope, but remained cynical.
Caprice, who has asked to only be identified by her first name, has said Whitehurst demanded oral sex of her and a friend when they were students at Franklin High in the 1980s.
Caprice said she worries investigators will struggle to get anyone to talk or that people will conveniently say they can't remember things.
"I don't think they are going to get answers. I think they are going to get stonewalling," she said. "I hope I'm wrong."
She also said she had trouble trusting that the district wouldn't just forget about the matter, move on, and leave the system unfixed.
"The things I want most of all are structural changes to keep the students protected because obviously whatever structures they had in place didn't work," she said. "People got hurt and it was so unnecessary."
Want to talk to the team of investigators?
People with knowledge of Whitehurst's past and how he was treated by the district can email the district's outside investigation team at
Brim-Edwards and co-vice chairs Julie Esparza Brown and Rita Moore picked the team. They noted Weaver's long experience with complex investigations and Ellis' knowledge of schools and education.
"We expect of the investigation that there will be recommendations for changes in both our policies and practices," Brim-Edwards said.
The board put the $125,000 cap on the team's expenses, but voiced interest in authorizing more funds at a later time.
The cap came at board member Amy Kohnstamm's suggestion. She said she wanted the investigation to be focused on structural change and new policies, considering many of the employees who could be implicated were gone. She noted it was more expensive than the investigation into the district's 2016 lead in drinking water crisis, done by law firm Stolle Berne, for no more than $65,000.
Brim-Edwards said she suspected this investigation would be more complex than that effort and it could be crucial to dig into the past to better understand the culture that allowed this to happen.
"If you look at the history, he was more likely to prey on children who did not have advocates and I just think it's a much more difficult investigation potentially," she said. "I would hate to say we did it on the cheap."
Moore agreed.
"I don't want to burn money," Moore said. "but I also want to make sure this a thorough investigation that parents and students can have faith in."
Brim-Edwards, her voice breaking, noted that she felt most parents expect their children will be safe when they send them to school and that was her presumption with her own daughter, who had Whitehurst as a high school gym teacher. She told The Oregonian/OregonLive nothing ever happened to her daughter, but she felt she was likely more protected because of Brim-Edwards' status in the community.
"This is like a parent's worst nightmare," Brim-Edwards told The Oregonian/OregonLive. "This isn't just about Mitch Whitehurst."
Want to talk to the team of investigators? People with knowledge of Whitehurst's past and how he was treated by the district can email the district's outside investigation team at WhitehurstInvestigation@stoel.com
— Bethany Barnes
Got a tip about Portland Public Schools? Email Bethany: bbarnes@oregonian.com