A custodian who says he reported a convicted West Aurora High School teacher's inappropriate behavior says the school didn't do enough to protect its students.
Stephen Orland, 42, was sentenced to 12 years in prison last March after pleading guilty to having sexual relations with two of his female students, according to the Daily Herald. He was originally charged with 27 counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault, criminal sexual abuse and battery, and almost 47,000 text messages he exchanged with his female band students would have been introduced as evidence, but his guilty plea streamlined the criminal trial.
At his trial, Orland read a statement expressing gratitude for his many accomplishments as teacher and band director and religious education teacher, and called the band room where he was found alone with female students a "second home and that’s what it was: a safe place to be,” the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
But Leon Smith, a now-retired custodian at West Aurora High School, says the school didn't stop Orland soon enough, and is responsible for the continued abuse of multiple students. He told the Aurora Beacon-News that he saw Orland touch a student inappropriately and reported it to administrators, but they did nothing to intervene in the teacher's relationships with students.
“What really made me mad is when I turned him in, they didn’t take him out,” Smith told CBS Chicago. Superintendent Dr. James Rydland disputes Smith's claim that he reported the incident.
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