Audit finds Chicago schools did not investigate majority of 2022 sexual assault claims

An audit of the Chicago school system found that the entity received almost 500 sexual assault complaints in 2022, but failed to investigate almost all of them.

The report, filed annually by the The Chicago Board of Education Office of Inspector General, showed 470 complaints within the Chicago Public Schools system in 2022, and school officials say they did not have the resources to investigate the majority of the complaints they received.

The report echoes one from 2018 that found teachers and other school staff within Chicago Public Schools had failed to report hundreds of cases of sexual assault to the school system. That report led to the creation of the school system’s Sexual Allegations Unit.

“Of the 1,825 total complaints received, the OIG opened investigations into a total of 725 cases (39.7%),” the report reads.

The report does not include cases in which the complaints were referred to other entities to investigate, which include sexual assault of one student by another. The complaints included in the report were those of staff-on-student sexual assault, and staff-on-staff sexual assault.

While the number of unsolved cases is still significant, the report points out that progress has been made in the last two years.

According to the numbers reported, the OIG closed 322 more cases in 2022 than it did in 2021. The report details several specific cases and what steps were taken to investigate them, as well as what disciplinary measures were imposed for each complaint. The OIG says in the report that it cannot investigate all the complaints it receives.

“Several factors restrict the number of cases the OIG can open and investigate,” the report says, “including a continuing focus on significant and often complex issues and time consumed by post-investigation activities.”