Vashon High School teacher Kara Sears routinely gave special treatment to one of her students, communicated with him via Instagram messages, and, in the summer after his graduation, visited his home several times when no one else was there, according to findings by an independent investigator hired by the Vashon Island School District.

The investigator’s 27-page report, dated Jan. 27, detailed several instances where Sears allegedly violated school district policy on boundary invasions in her conduct with the student during the 2021-2022 school year, the student’s senior year.

The investigation began last August after the student’s parent alleged that Sears had groomed the teenager for what the parent suspected was a sexual relationship that took place in the summer following his graduation from VHS.

The investigator concluded that Sears also violated district policy with her relationship with several other students, “creating an inner circle of favored students, speaking to them about other staff members in unprofessional ways, allowing them to follow her on social media platforms, allowing them to ignore school-wide rules/mandates and permitting them to hang out/congregate in her classroom knowing they were skipping other classes.”

Additionally, the investigator found that Sears had “violated the district’s instruction to refrain from engaging in any conduct that could potentially interfere with the investigation” with respect to her communication with a para-educator and another VHS student.

According to the investigator’s report, Sears acknowledged she had become close to the student, particularly during the summer that followed his graduation from high school. But when asked, she denied that their relationship became sexual, the report said.

The former student, too, denied a sexual relationship. However, he related that Sears had told him that she loved him and that he had said the same thing to her — and had regarded her as “more than a friend.”

The Beachcomber obtained the investigative report last week, as part of a broad public records request regarding the investigation. The response to the disclosure request also included a settlement agreement between Sears and the district.

Sears, 40, has been on paid administrative leave since the start of the administration’s investigation last August. Last month, she submitted her resignation, effective Oct. 31, until which time she will remain on paid administrative leave, with full salary and benefits.

A 16-year employee of the district, Sears has a current annual salary of approximately $131,000, making her one of the highest-paid teachers in the district.

Report details escalating concerns

The 27-page investigative report was conducted by Celeste Monroe, an investigator affiliated with the law firm of Karr Tuttle Campbell. In the report, Monroe recounted interviews with VHS administrators, two VHS teachers, a para-educator who worked closely with Sears, and four students who had closely observed Sears’ interactions with the student whose parent had accused Sears of misconduct.

Monroe also interviewed Sears, the former student, and the parent of the former student.

(Names of all VHS students and the parent who accused Sears of misconduct are redacted in the report.)

Among the report’s findings was that Sears had “downplayed and lied about certain situations in portraying her version of events” during her testimony.

The student’s parent, in their testimony, detailed escalating concerns about their teenager’s relationship with Sears and changes in the teenager’s behaviors and interests during the 2021-2022 school years.

The parent also provided the investigator with home security camera footage, a text message, and other evidence pertaining to the case.

Report details policy violations

The report determined that Sears had violated the district’s policy on boundary invasions in her conduct with the student in multiple ways, including:

• Allowing the student to skip another class and then hang out in her classroom.
• Following the student on Instagram and communicating with him privately during the school year on the social media platform. In one exchange, the investigator said, Sears asked the student what she should wear to school and joked about going to school naked.
• Sitting next to the student frequently at her desk, with their bodies sometimes touching.
• Allowing the student access to her personal cell phone.
• Monroe also established, in her report, that Sears had repeated contact with the student in the summer months following his graduation, including:
• Visiting the student at his house on multiple occasions when no one else was home and, on at least one of those occasions, spending time in the student’s bedroom, behind a closed door.
• Hosting the student at her own house, on one occasion, when her family was away.
• Going on multiple walks in private locations with the student, which neither the student or Sears informed others about.
• Frequently exchanging text messages with the student over the course of the summer.
• Acknowledging, in a text sent to the student, that her relationship with the student had been inappropriate and what she stood to lose if the student’s parent reported the relationship. The text, in part, read, “I love my kids more than anything in the world, I want to keep my job, and I obviously have work to do with [my husband] .. but I don’t want to lose all that. Because all of it would be gone. Although my heart has steered me differently, my brain knows I acted unethically … and for that I am truly sorry.”

Monroe also concluded that Sears had, to a lesser degree, violated district policy by her conduct with other students who were interviewed in the investigations. These violations included:

• Creating an inner circle of favored students
• Speaking to the students about other VHS staff members, including then-VHS principal Danny Rock, in disparaging and unprofessional ways
• Allowing the students to follow her on social media platforms
• Allowing them to ignore school-wide masking mandates
• Permitting them to hang out and congregate in her classroom while knowing they were skipping other classes.
• Additionally, according to the report, Sears had twice violated the district’s directives regarding her conduct while on administrative leave, by communicating with a para-educator and a student about the district’s investigation.

Testimony from paraeducator and students

Colby Gateman, a 2015 graduate of VHS who is now a paraeducator at VHS, said that she had frequently been in Sears’ classroom during the 2021-2022 school year, according to the report.

Gateman’s testimony detailed what she called “odd” behavior by Sears toward the student, which included allowing him to sit very close to her at her desk, shimmying her chest at the student, making inside jokes of a suggestive nature and openly teasing the student about his ex-girlfriend from middle school.

Gateman also said she had seen Sears and the student walking, alone, during Sears’ prep period, when the student served as her teaching assistant.

Gateman presented the investigator with photos she had taken in Sears’ classroom, including one showing Sears arm-wrestling with the student.

Gateman’s testimony described the dynamics of Sears’ interactions with her “inner circle” of favored students.

“…As an example of how comfortable the students felt around Ms. Sears, Ms. Gateman said one or more of the students asked whether her treatment of them was owing to her period – and that this question was posed on more than one occasion,” the report said — adding that Sears had “not reacted to the question as inappropriate and would joke back with the students.”

Four students interviewed as part of Monroe’s investigation also variously described aspects of Sears’ relationship with the student as having included favoritism to the student, inside jokes, frequent eye contact, sitting close to each other in the classroom, and Instagram messages exchanged by the pair.

Testimony from administrators

Testimony by both Danny Rock, the former principal of VHS, and John Erickson, its current principal who served as assistant principal in 2021 to 2022, described a series of escalating concerns about Sears’ performance as a teacher.

Rock said that Sears’ job performance had degraded since he had been named as the school’s principal, in 2013. Sears, he said, had seemed to “sour” after the 2016 presidential election, and had not been “on board for racial equity training and … anti-gun marches students led.”

Among his concerns is that “students were often seen leaving her classroom without hall passes and hanging out in her classroom when they were not assigned to her.”

He said that in the 2019-2020 school year, Sears appeared to have a group of students that “had her favor and [they] got to do things others didn’t.”

With respect to prior concerns about prior boundary violations, Rock said Sears was often close to the line, particularly post-COVID. He added that Erickson had drafted an April 2022 letter of direction to Sears, related to boundaries, based on “escalated complaints from students and parents.”

The report also quotes Rock as saying that no one had previously made an allegation of inappropriate sexual contact against Sears.

Erickson, in his interview with the investigator, detailed parents’ concerns about Sears’ preferential treatment of students and her engagement with some students over social media platforms.

The non-disciplinary letter of direction written by Erickson to Sears, in April 2022, instructed her to “maintain appropriate boundaries with students” and warned that a failure to adhere to the directive “could result in discipline, up to and including termination from the district.”

Settlement Agreement

A settlement agreement, detailing the terms of Kara Sears’ resignation from the school district, was signed by Superintendent Slade McSheehy and Sears on March 16.

The agreement states that the district will provide Sears with a neutral recommendation, stating the dates of her employment and her positions held at Vashon High School, and provide the same information to any potential employers who contact the district.

Additionally, the district will not conduct a performance review of Sears for the 2021-2022 school year, and will keep files pertaining to its investigation of Sears during the 2022-2023 school years separate from her personnel file.

The agreement also stipulated that the district, by law, could not forego making any reporting required by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) regarding Sears’ teacher certification or employment in the district, if it determines such reporting is necessary.

On March 23, McSheehy did report to OSPI that he had “sufficient reliable information to believe that certificated teacher Kara Sears is not of good moral character or personally fit, and/or has committed acts of inappropriate and unprofessional conduct.”

As a result of McSheehy’s letter, Sears is now under investigation by OSPI’s Office of Professional Practices, charged with the certification of teachers.