The public levelled strong criticism at Unit 5 this spring when two teachers were investigated for alleged misconduct with minors.
Despite Andrew Miller and Brandon Knapp being removed from their classrooms at Chiddix Junior High, many asked why the two men were kept on the taxpayer-funded payroll as the criminal investigations unfolded — and why Unit 5 didn’t do more to protect its students.
The reality is Unit 5 was caught flat-footed, in part because police and prosecutors kept the school district in the dark. A WGLT investigation showed Unit 5 repeatedly tried to gain information about Knapp’s case — and was repeatedly rebuffed, limiting the district’s ability to act swiftly.
A review of dozens of emails and other documents revealed information silos which kept Unit 5 from knowing what law enforcement and child welfare officials knew about its employees, even when it involved students in their care.
The result is an employer charged with the safety of children learning about its employees' alleged conduct in real-time as information trickles out in court proceedings.
“We take these allegations extremely serious[ly],” said Curt Richardson, the attorney for Unit 5. “We do our own investigation. We’re very thorough. But we need the cooperation of our other partners to be able to do this.”
Even attempts to improve interagency communication have been stymied. According to an intergovernmental agreement, law enforcement is supposed to give Unit 5 a heads-up when one of its employees is charged with a felony. That apparently didn’t happen in Knapp’s case. Instead, Unit 5 said it first learned of his arrest from WGLT.
Reciprocal reporting
A memorandum of understanding between McLean and Woodford counties, Bloomington, Normal, Illinois State University [on behalf of the lab schools] and 14 area school districts lays out expectations around information sharing between schools and law enforcement when a student or staff member is taken into custody or charged with a crime. Similarly, schools are expected to report to law enforcement agencies upon any report of alleged battery against school personnel, possession of a firearm on school grounds or any incident involving drugs at school.
The agreement, signed in 2013 by more than a dozen officials representing schools, municipalities and police departments, was obtained by WGLT through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The agreement says law enforcement “shall report to the schools when any employee of the schools has been arrested or taken into custody for any felony.”
It does not say by when they shall report it.
Unit 5 spokesperson Dayna Brown said, “To the best of our knowledge, we first became aware of the information [about Knapp's arrest] through a call from WGLT. Please know, we have a strong working relationship with the Normal Police Department and reached out to them at that time.”
When contacted for comment, Normal Police Department spokesperson Brad Park said the department "complied with the reporting provisions shared in the Memorandum of Understanding [MOU] and the Intergovernmental Agreement between the Town of Normal and Unit 5."
NPD did not respond to two follow-up requests for additional context on the agreement.
Investigations in parallel
By the time Knapp was arrested in April, Unit 5 had already been repeatedly blocked from accessing information which could have helped the district take action.
Knapp was pulled from the classroom and placed on paid leave in November 2025 after allegations of grooming-type behaviors were reported to Chiddix administrators. The district interviewed students as part of its own investigation and, several days later, someone made a report to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services [DCFS].
As WGLT previously reported, Knapp was back in the classroom before the DCFS investigation concluded, with a letter of reprimand on his personnel file and instructions to avoid inappropriate sexual language and brushing against female students.
“We had asked [DCFS] if there were any concerns about bringing him back in the classroom and we were not told of any concerns,” Richardson said, adding there was "no indication" from the information they had that it was unsafe for Knapp to be around students.
According to emails obtained by WGLT through a Freedom of Information Act request, Unit 5 learned that DCFS found credible evidence Knapp had engaged in acts constituting “sexual exploitation” and “sexual molestation,” referred to as an “indicated finding,” on Jan. 16, 2026. DCFS declined a request to confirm this, saying all investigations are confidential.
After getting that DCFS finding, Unit 5 again pulled Knapp from the classroom, and Richardson said that’s when the district launched a new internal investigation.
Emails obtained by WGLT confirm Unit 5 sought access to interviews conducted by the McLean County Children’s Advocacy Center [CAC] as part of the DCFS and Normal Police investigations on Jan. 16, the same day it learned of the indicated finding.
In an email on Jan. 27, CAC director Aileen Pagan Vega told Richardson she had “been working with our legal department on an answer and I am also working to reach out to the team to confirm that they agree to letting you access the interviews.”
They didn’t.
“At this time, the multidisciplinary team declines to grant school personnel viewing access to the forensic interviews conducted by the CAC in this matter,” Pagan Vega told Richardson in an email on Feb. 9.
Richardson replied to Pagan Vega within 15 minutes, saying the district would reach out to students to conduct its own interviews — but that didn’t happen either.
In separate correspondence with the district, one family [whose names are redacted] said they’d been advised to deny Unit 5 access to the CAC interview and further declined to participate in Unit 5’s investigation, saying they’d been told to not consent to a separate interview with the district.
“It was clear to us at that point that we were probably not going to get that much cooperation doing [an] additional investigation,” Richardson said.
It’s not clear who advised the family, but State’s Attorney Erika Reynolds, whose office oversees the CAC, said decisions to disclose a forensic interview requires unanimous consent among all agencies and involved families and is determined on a case-by-case basis.
“This includes cases such as these where the feedback we are receiving include allegations against Unit 5 staff making comments such as, ‘That doesn’t sound like Mr. So and So [teacher’s name intentionally deleted],’ ‘You’re ruining Mr. So and So’s life by making these allegations,’ and ‘You’re blowing this out of proportion,’ just to name a few. The protection of the children through this process is our job and of paramount importance. That duty, along with our ethical and legal responsibilities, drive our decision making,” Reynolds said.
Richardson said any concerns about whether Unit 5 staff took matters seriously were not communicated to the district.
“We had not heard from the state’s attorney at all during that time,” he said. “In fact, the only time we’ve heard from her is when we’ve inquired to try and get access to CAC interviews. We’ve asked for that communication in the future. Like, if you have concerns, please let us know so we can be good partners and communicate. We’re all trying to keep kids safe.
“I don’t know specifically what they’re alleging we should have done differently in investigating or taking action,” Richardson said. “We did not have all the evidence, and that’s why we were seeking it through the CAC recordings. And we were denied access to that.”
Richardson said the legal statute establishing the multiagency structure surrounding juvenile victim interviews is “designed to prevent multiple interviews of a child at a school," which he said can induce significant trauma.
“That’s the whole purpose of having the CAC, which has a multidisciplinary team," he said, "School districts aren’t part of that. So, our only access to that information is either through cooperation through witnesses in our own investigation or through viewing those CAC recordings.
“That’s one of the considerations you have to make, is if you’re denied access to those CAC recordings, how far do we investigate this, and go back and potentially retraumatize a child by making them conduct another interview? …Is it worth putting that child through that second interview?”
Richardson said it would have been inappropriate to draw a different conclusion from the one Unit 5 made in December to bring Knapp back to the classroom without additional information.
Another roadblock
Unit 5 also tried, unsuccessfully, to get Knapp’s grand jury indictment from the state’s attorney’s office. The day Knapp was arrested, the district was denied access to the sealed indictments until after his pretrial detention hearing the next day.
After that, prosecuting attorney Aaron Fredrick said the court record is “sealed and not a matter of public record because the case involves a child,” emails show.
Richardson asked, in that instance, if they could be sent the indictments with juvenile names redacted.
This request was also denied.
In an email to WGLT, Reynolds said “indictments are not evidence,” and that she’s restricted from commenting on specifics of open cases.
“Additional information will become available to the public as these cases go through the court process when we are legally allowed to share the information,” she said.
Information sharing goes both ways
In Unit 5’s own investigation into the November 2025 allegations, Knapp received an attached “Notice Regarding Investigation and Directive” with an emailed request for a meeting with the district, records showed.
The notice sent on Nov. 20, 2025, by Human Resources Director Heather Rogers, said the district has “the right to both require you to participate in our investigation and to answer the questions asked of you. However, because your answers to some of the questions I will ask you today could be potentially incriminating, I also have a duty to advise you that nothing you say today can or will be used against you in any potential criminal proceedings.”
This “limited immunity,” the letter said, “does not prohibit any law enforcement agency from prosecuting you with any evidence it may obtain through its own investigation.”
There’s also Knapp’s prior alleged behavior, which was only mentioned in passing when the letter of reprimand was added to his personnel file in December.
Emails and electronic calendar entries obtained by WGLT shed new light on these prior incidents.
Messages to Knapp indicate he had been called into meetings with then-Chiddix Principal Mariana Nicasio and/or the district’s human resources officer on several occasions between November 2024 and January 2026, when he was last removed from the classroom.
In late November 2024, Knapp received an email from Nicasio alerting him of an accusation of inappropriate touching by a female student. The email includes the student’s name [redacted in WGLT’s records request].
Knapp attended a meeting with administrators in December 2024, communications showed. In January, Nicasio again emailed Knapp saying the district “believed the matter was resolved,” while noting an additional accusation of retaliation when Knapp requested a schedule change for the student who made the initial complaint.
“I acknowledge that you sent me an email expressing concern about future accusations regarding your handling of [name redacted] and requesting a transfer to another team,” Nicasio said in the Jan. 9, 2025, email. “Regrettably, I did not respond to your email, and I apologize for my oversight. In fact, I did not remember the email until our conversation today. I understand how this lack of response may have left you feeling unsupported.”
Two days earlier, the student had “expressed distress” over the schedule change, the email said.
“You explained it was due to a complaint she had made against you back in November,” said Nicasio, who has since resigned, adding parents had expressed feelings the schedule change was retaliatory.
A second incident appears to have occurred in February 2025 during a field trip. Emails from Unit 5 human resources to Knapp indicate a concern was reported by parents that required a meeting between Knapp and administrators.
On April 18, 2025, Knapp was cleared after an “investigation about inappropriate conversations with students” was complete.
“After conducting student interviews, there were no findings to support the concerns raised,” said Director of Human Resources Heather Rogers in the email. “In fact, many students shared very positive feedback and expressed that you are one of their favorite teachers.”
A year later, Knapp was in jail on grooming charges.
Different goals and standards of proof
School districts, DCFS and law enforcement have different objectives and are subject to different burdens of proof. Schools look for evidence of employee misconduct, DCFS investigates abuse and neglect, and police and prosecutors seek evidence of a crime.
To reach an indicated finding, DCFS must determine an allegation “more likely than not” occurred, while prosecutors must prove an allegation “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
In all instances, the alleged perpetrator has the right to appeal.
In an email, a spokesperson for DCFS in Illinois said when there is a pending case in criminal court related to the same incident, the DCFS appeal is dismissed and cannot go forward until the criminal case is resolved.
“The appellant remains indicated and the appeal is not considered until the criminal case has concluded,” the agency said.
Murky track record
While some of this compartmentalization is baked into the law, Unit 5 also has a complicated record on teacher misconduct.
The district faced and settled multiple lawsuits from families whose children were abused two decades ago by teacher Jon White, who moved from Unit 5 to Urbana’s school district. Unit 5 was accused of failing to warn Urbana school officials about White's behavior in Normal, allowing him to prey on more children. He’s serving 60 years in prison.
A more recent example went differently.
“There are situations in which we go ahead and proceed and take action despite the fact that DCFS doesn’t have an indicated finding and the state’s attorney doesn’t file criminal charges,” Richardson said. “We did that a few years ago.”
Unit 5 fired teacher Jonathan Hovey in 2020 amid allegations that he abused two students. The state’s attorney’s office dropped the charges.
Richardson said that was an example of how information-sharing should work.
“I know the state’s attorney said they consider this on a case-by-case basis, but [the Knapp case] was a break in our practice,” he said. “Previously, we had been allowed access to the CAC recordings, and we took action appropriate[ly] based on that.”
Richardson said there’s “a lot of work to do to repair trust and culture,” especially at Chiddix Junior High, but that the silos keeping them out of the loop isn’t helping.
“We need to be able to get the information we need to be able to take action as a school district,” he said.
Knapp has pleaded not guilty. His trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 14. Knapp's attorney, John Lonergan, previously declined to comment on the case.
