A Vashon High School (VHS) teacher remains on paid administrative leave and under district investigation following a complaint involving allegations of misconduct.

The complaint initially resulted in Vashon Island School District (VISD) contacting King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO), on Sept. 1, to report a suspected sexual relationship between the teacher and a former student.

While Washington law defines the age of consent as 16, it also specifies that teachers can be charged with felony or misdemeanor charges of sexual misconduct if they engage in sexual activity with enrolled students up to the age of 21 years old.

However, in late September, KCSO made a decision not to refer the case to the King County Prosecutor’s Office for charges, as investigators had determined that anything that happened “in this relationship” had occurred after the student had graduated from VHS, according to KCSO Sgt. M. Corbett Ford.

The school’s investigation, continuing on a separate track, focuses on the teacher’s possible violation of VISD’s policy 5253, which outlines the district’s role in protecting students from a broad range of inappropriate, boundary-crossing behaviors by staff.

Slade McSheehy, VISD superintendent, has communicated with district families through email updates about the case, strongly stating that VISD is taking the matter very seriously, while also stating the district could not provide additional details about the case.

Likewise, McSheehy has also declined to answer more specific questions about the case in Beachcomber interviews, including whether the district had received prior complaints about the teacher.

However, the police report on the closed case, obtained by The Beachcomber, does address the teacher’s conduct, prior to the case.

According to the report, McSheehy told the reporting deputy assigned to the case on Sept. 1, that the teacher “has a history of administrative intervention due to inappropriate relationships with students, but nothing to the extent of [the current] allegations.”

Reached by phone last week, McSheehy said he could not comment on the district’s investigation or information conveyed in the police report — saying only, again, that VISD’s investigation was being conducted with great seriousness, and that he urged any islanders with information about the case to contact the district.

That message was again repeated in an email sent to district families last week.

“If anyone in the community has information regarding the allegations, we would like them to provide it to us as soon as possible,” McSheehy said. “Any misconduct as alleged will not be tolerated and is inconsistent with both the community and district values and standards.”