Jessica Wishnask Part One: Cover-Up Culture? - WECT Investigates decades of sexual abuse at New Hanover County Schools Peter Frank Michael Kelly Nicholas Oates Richard Priode Jessica Wishnask Peter Frank: Peter Frank, the now-former Roland-Grise Middle School Band teacher, is in custody awaiting trial on a series of child sex crime charges. Frank is the third New Hanover County Schools employee to be arrested for sex crimes against students in just the last two years. Michael Earl Kelly pleaded guilty to sex crimes against minor students, and Nicholas Oates died while awaiting trial for alleged crimes he pleaded not guilty to. Going back over the last two decades, there are additional cases: Jessica Wishnask and Richard Priode both pleaded guilty to crimes they were arrested for after they had moved ... Michael Kelly: Michael Kelly - ‘All of the red flags were there’: For Michael Tomaselli, the news about Frank and the emergence of newly-discovered victims of Kelly has been hard to grapple with. “Seeing more cases come forward ... In the beginning, I’m not going to lie, I felt guilty,” he said. “If I had said something at the time I maybe could’ve done something. It’s taken a lot of active effort for me to come to the realization that it’s not my fault.” Tomaselli was a student at Isaac Bear Early College high school from 2006 to 2010, and had Kelly ... Nicholas Oates: Nicholas Oates - ‘There’s still not a lot of clarity’: Nicholas Oates, who worked as a special education assistant at Myrtle Grove Middle School, was arrested on July 7, 2018, almost five months to the day from Kelly’s arrest, accused of having molested a student while he was at Myrtle Grove. Oates was suspended in December 2016 while the district investigated “suggestive” text messages. Court records show Oates and his victim had exchanged nude photos, but the victim said she deleted them so her parents wouldn’t see them. Sheriff’s investigators say they were unaware of the photos during the district’s ... Richard Priode: Richard Priode - ‘I’m not the kind of person to say I told you so, but if I were this would be the time': The cases of Kelly, Oates, and Frank not only led to outrage from those parents with children in the New Hanover County Schools system, but caught the attention of former parents who said they had been trying to raise the alarm about the same kind of issues decades before. That included the case of Richard Priode, who was hired as a band teacher at Laney High School in 1997, and left the district when he resigned ... Jessica Wishnask: Jessica Wishnask - ‘It was horrifying to me as a board member': It isn’t just male teachers who have been charged with sex crimes with their students — or who had questionable conduct documented in their employment records. In 2009, Jessica Wishnask was arrested and charged with statutory rape and indecent liberties with a student. While she was arrested after having left the district, the charges were for events that occurred when she was a teacher at Williston Middle School. She pleaded guilty in January 2010. Upon review of her employment with New Hanover, personnel records show she was suspended ... Wrap-up: ‘How will it be different?’ - Path forward unclear as questions about alleged cover-up remain: This school year, the leadership of New Hanover County Schools looks somewhat different. Tim Markley, who was hired as superintendent in 2010, resigned in February, three days after search warrants in the Peter Frank case were served and revealed details about the band teacher’s alleged crimes. Assistant superintendent of human resources John Welmers resigned effective March 1. Holliday announced his retirement less than a week after Kelly pleaded guilty in 2019. In legal filings, Holliday has denied knowing anything about Kelly’s actions. Along with former ... Continue reading... https://www.wect.com/2020/08/10/par...ades-sexual-abuse-new-hanover-county-schools/
Part Two: Cover-Up Culture? - WECT Investigates administrators’ response to sexual abuse at New Hanover County Schools Teachers / perps: Peter Frank Michael Kelly Nicholas Oates Richard Priode Jessica Wishnask Administrators: Rick Holliday Tim Markley John Welmers Eleven years ago, after a teacher was arrested for indecent liberties with a student, a New Hanover County Schools administrator said: “We hate that a student was involved. So it is making us look at what we do, and how we do it, and those sorts of things when we work with teachers.” That comment was made in 2009 by John Welmers, who at the time was the district’s assistant superintendent for human resources, after the arrest of former Williston Middle School teacher Jessica Wishnask. A year later, Wishnask would plead guilty to indecent liberties with a minor after she ... Continue reading... https://www.wect.com/2020/08/17/par...onse-sexual-abuse-new-hanover-county-schools/
5 discussed: Peter Frank Richard Halliday Michael Kelly Tim Markley Richard Priode 2 others mentioned: Nicholas Oates Jessica Wishnask Part Three: Cover-Up Culture? WECT Investigates claims of retaliation in the face of abuse reports at NHCS Caroline Kuebler thought bringing reports of inappropriate behavior by a science teacher to the attention of school administrators would help eliminate the problem — instead, she said she believes her complaints resulted in her son suffering because of those administrators’ actions. In the early 2000′s, Kuebler’s son was a student of Michael Kelly, the former teacher of the year who pleaded guilty in 2019 to dozens counts of sex-related crimes against students at Laney and at Isaac Bear Early College High School. She had heard from another parent, her son, and eventually other students that Kelly had been making inappropriate ... Continue reading... https://www.wect.com/2020/08/24/par...s-claims-retaliation-face-abuse-reports-nhcs/ Part Three: Cover-Up Culture? WECT Investigates claims of retaliation in the face of abuse reports at NHCS Kuebler’s son was not one of the named victims in the criminal investigation into Kelly, but after hearing the reports of what Kelly was doing, Kuebler first tried to talk to Ke ... Continue reading... https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crim...the-face-of-abuse-reports-at-nhcs/ar-BB18kl6w
6 named: Peter Frank Michael Kelly Tim Markley Nicholas Oates Richard Priode Jessica Wishnask Part Four: Cover-Up Culture? WECT Investigates how the embattled NHCS system can move forward and heal from decades of abuse He said he had simply planned to watch the proceedings, as his former science teacher Michael Kelly, who had just pleaded guilty to 59 sex-related crimes, was sentenced. “Originally I just wanted to put this in a box and never touch it again,” he said,”[but] I felt that I had to go to the courtroom that day to see it happen. To get that closure.” Kelly’s sentencing hearing on June 25, 2019 was attended by several victims and their families, as well as members of the media and a number of concerned citizens who had watched the case unfold. When ... Continue reading... https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crim...rd-and-heal-from-decades-of-abuse/ar-BB18yUFf
