Across the Midwest, parents are discovering a painful truth: the biggest danger to their children is not just “out there” in the shadows, but sometimes standing at the front of the classroom.
Recent reporting out of Wisconsin uncovered more than 200 investigations into teachers and school staff accused of sexual misconduct or grooming behaviors since 2018—cases that were largely hidden from the public and often resulted in the educator keeping a license to work with children.
At the same time, a Wisconsin middle-school teacher is in court right now for allegedly “grooming” a seventh-grade girl through late-night Snapchat messages and inappropriate comments about her body—yet prosecutors had to reach for misdemeanor disorderly conduct statutes because the state doesn’t clearly define grooming as a crime.
This is exactly why strong, precise anti-grooming laws are urgently needed—and why the work of advocates like Michelle Peterson and the vision of The Cornerstone Standard belong at the center of the national conversation.
The Scope of the Problem: One in Ten
A year-long investigation by The Cap Times and Wisconsin Watch found that the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) opened more than 450 educator misconduct investigations from 2018–2023; at least 204—about 44%—involved sexual misconduct or grooming allegations.
These cases include accusations that educators:
- Sexually assaulted students
- Solicited nude photos from minors
- Maintained boundary-crossing relationships that “groomed” students through gifts, secrecy, and inappropriate physical contact
Nationally, one of the leading researchers on educator sexual misconduct, Dr. Charol Shakeshaft, estimates that one in ten students will experience some form of sexual misconduct by an educator during their K-12 years. In Wisconsin alone, that works out to more than 93,000 children.
Yet in Wisconsin:
- DPI had just one full-time and one part-time investigator handling more than 100 cases per year.
- Out of 461 teachers investigated for all types of misconduct, 207 kept their credentials and can legally keep working with children.
In other words, the system appears structurally tilted toward protecting adults and institutions, not children.
When “Beloved Teachers” Become Predators
The grooming problem is not theoretical; it has names and faces.
The Kenosha Snapchat case
In Kenosha, Wisconsin, 29-year-old science teacher Christian Enwright was charged with 22 counts of misdemeanor disorderly conduct after allegedly sending more than 600 Snapchat messages in a single week to a seventh-grade student.
According to the complaint, those messages included:
- Shirtless selfies from his bed
- Repeated compliments about the girl’s body, especially her legs
- Statements like “you’re like really really cute” and “I’m trying so hard to be appropriate lol but…”
Police and prosecutors openly admitted it was “complicated” to find a statute that fit behavior everyone instinctively knew was predatory. They ended up using an all-purpose disorderly conduct law—because Wisconsin had no tailored offense for grooming.
Enwright has pleaded not guilty. But the legal contortions required just to charge him underline the need for clear anti-grooming laws.
The secret camera trips
The Cap Times investigation highlighted the case of Madison East High School teacher David Kruchten, who took students on overnight field trips and secretly hid recording devices in hotel bathrooms and sleeping areas. Kruchten eventually pleaded guilty in federal court to attempting to produce child sexual abuse material and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Victims described:
- Avoiding school altogether
- Sitting in student services all day because they could no longer trust teachers
- Feeling like “a shell of a human being” from the trauma
Even when there is no physical contact, grooming and boundary-breaking destroy a child’s trust and can lead to long-term mental health struggles, addiction, and difficulty forming healthy relationships.
“The Cap Times found at least 44% of the Department of Public Instruction’s over 450 educator license investigations since 2018 have involved sexual misconduct or grooming allegations — a number researchers and advocates say is likely an undercount of these cases.” – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
A System that Hides Misconduct
The Wisconsin DPI’s own records reveal a pattern:
- Educators investigated for repeated boundary violations and “grooming-type” behavior often resign quietly but keep their licenses, sometimes after a short “boundaries” course.
- More than 80 educators under investigation for sexual misconduct or grooming have simply surrendered their licenses, avoiding a full investigation and any formal finding of wrongdoing.
- When licenses are surrendered, DPI closes the case and does not publicly disclose why, making it easier for abusers to resurface in other child-serving roles.
Meanwhile, other professions in Wisconsin—doctors, accountants, even manicurists—have more transparent online disciplinary records than teachers do.
When a child is harmed, secrecy serves predators. Sunlight and strong law serve children.
Why Clear Anti-Grooming Laws Matter
Law enforcement officers in the Kenosha case said out loud what many prosecutors know: grooming behavior “made everybody uncomfortable, everyone knew it was wrong, but where in legislation is it addressed specifically?”
That gap is finally starting to close.
In Wisconsin, a new bill authored by Rep. Amanda Nedweski and Sen. Jesse James would, for the first time, define sexual grooming as a felony. Under the proposal:
- Grooming is defined as a course of conduct intended to condition, seduce, lure, or entice a child for sexual contact or to produce child pornography, including via digital communications, sexualized comments, or inappropriate touching.
- Penalties range from 10 to 25 years in prison, depending on the offender’s relationship to the child and other factors.
- Convicted offenders must register as sex offenders.
The bill also wisely clarifies that it does not criminalize ordinary teen relationships between peers close in age, unless there is force, coercion, or abuse of authority.
This is exactly the kind of clarity prosecutors needed in Kenosha—and why anti-grooming bills are not just symbolic; they are tools that help law enforcement intervene before abuse escalates to physical contact.
And Wisconsin is not alone. Thanks in large part to grassroots advocates, at least ten states—including Illinois, Florida, Iowa, Arizona, Georgia, Montana, Texas, Ohio, and Arkansas—now have grooming statutes on the books, with others like Mississippi and Minnesota considering similar measures.
One of the key figures driving this movement is a mom who refused to be silent: Michelle Peterson.
Michelle Peterson: A Mother Who Turned Pain into Policy
Michelle Peterson describes herself simply as a “middle American mother,” but her impact is national. Her son Andrew was 15 when a 34-year-old teacher and baseball coach at Morris High School began grooming him. The teacher sent thousands of sexually explicit texts, offered money for sexual acts, and requested illicit videos.
After a brutal three-year battle with local prosecutors, the teacher was convicted under Illinois’ newly-enacted grooming law in 2013. Shockingly, he received only 30 days in jail, a modest fine, and 10 years on the sex-offender registry—time that has already expired.
That case is believed to have been the first and only grooming conviction in the United States at the time, not because grooming wasn’t happening, but because almost no states had a statute that named it.
Michelle’s response: she refused to move on.
On her site, she explains her “why” this way: she is “tired of being the silent majority” and has become a “fierce defender of our God-given rights, Christian values, and our children—by all means and at any cost.”
Since Andrew’s case, Michelle has:
- Worked with investigators like Amy Coello, who now uses Andrew’s grooming conviction as a legal foundation in major sex-trafficking prosecutions, including the La Luz del Mundo cult case.
- Helped craft grooming laws in Florida, Iowa, and Arizona, and supported efforts in Georgia and other states.
- Championed “Andrew’s Law” in Illinois (HB 1140 / SB 282), pushing for:
- Lifetime registration for grooming offenders
- Expanded child-focused “no-go” zones for offenders (from Chuck E. Cheese to mall play areas)
- Elimination of plea deals that let predators escape grooming charges
Michelle constantly reminds lawmakers: grooming does not require physical touch to devastate a child. The psychological manipulation, the secrecy, the digital sexualization—all of this is abuse that demands serious legal consequences.
For legislators anywhere in America who want to write effective anti-grooming bills, Michelle Peterson should be one of the first calls they make. She brings:
- First-hand family experience
- A track record of successful statutes in multiple states
- Connections to trafficking investigators and legal experts who use grooming laws in real cases
In short: she is already functioning as one of the nation’s most important subject-matter experts on grooming legislation.
Good Laws Protect Children; Bad Laws Expose Them
While some states are finally naming grooming as a crime, others are flirting with bills that actually make grooming easier.
California’s AB 495, for example, expands the “Caregiver’s Authorization Affidavit” so that any adult who claims a mentoring or “familial” relationship—including teachers, neighbors, or “family friends”—can sign a form and gain authority to enroll a child in school and consent to certain medical care, without requiring parental notice or consent.
California Family Council warns that AB 495 likely violates parents’ fundamental rights to direct their children’s education and medical care and creates a new pathway for bad actors to insert themselves between parent and child.
A Direct Assault on Parental Rights
California Family Council has consistently warned that AB 495 represents a direct violation of God-given parental rights. Parents — not bureaucrats, not schools, and not loosely defined “relatives” — are the ones entrusted by God to protect and raise their children (Deut. 6:6–7). This bill threatens that sacred bond by allowing others to step into a parental role without genuine safeguards.
In other words: not all “child-focused” bills are pro-child. Some, like AB 495, open the door wider for predators, while sidelining the very people God designed to be a child’s protectors: mom and dad.
How This Connects to The Cornerstone Standard
The Cornerstone Standard Coalition was formed around a simple, non-negotiable truth: the protection of children is the foundation of the social contract. When governments permit or perpetrate harm against children, that contract is broken.
Article 1 of The Cornerstone Standard: Protecting Children declares that it is a serious criminal offense to administer so-called “transgender healthcare” to minors—puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and mutilating surgeries—and that states must criminalize and prosecute those who do so.
But grooming in schools is part of the same dark continuum:
- Both grooming and “gender-affirming” interventions rely on isolating children from their parents.
- Both depend on secrecy, manipulation, and exploitation of a child’s trust.
- Both leave lifelong scars on bodies and souls.
If it is a “serious criminal offense” to mutilate a child’s body, it is likewise a serious offense to corrupt a child’s innocence and prepare that child for sexual exploitation.
For that reason, robust anti-grooming laws—and strong parental-rights protections—belong alongside Article 1 as a natural extension of the Cornerstone Standard. They are different fronts in the same war for the next generation.
Where We Go from Here
If we’re serious about protecting children, we must be serious about law.
- States must define grooming as a specific felony offense, covering both digital and in-person conduct, and provide penalties that reflect the gravity of the harm.
- Teacher-licensing agencies must be reformed so that grooming allegations are investigated properly, outcomes are transparent, and known predators cannot simply resign, surrender licenses quietly, and resurface elsewhere.
- Parental-rights protections must be strengthened, not weakened, so that no school, hospital, or activist can cut parents out of life-altering decisions about their children—as we see in California’s AB 495.
- Legislators should seek out real experts, like Michelle Peterson and the coalition of attorneys and investigators she works with, to craft laws that actually work in the courtroom, not just on paper.
The Cornerstone Standard Coalition exists to help states and counties stand together in defense of children. The same courage it takes to criminalize child mutilation is needed to criminalize grooming and to shut every legal door predators try to slip through.
This is not a partisan issue. It is a moral, spiritual, and civic obligation.
Our children are not acceptable collateral damage in the culture war. They are the cornerstone of any just society— and the measure by which God and history will judge us.
Sign the Declaration of Purpose calling for the formation of The Cornerstone Standard Coalition of States today!
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