Years before a former Bloom Trail High School teacher was charged with sexual assault of a student, District 206 fielded complaints of his inappropriate conduct, according to records obtained by the Daily Southtown.
Ronald Giglio, of Cedar Lake, Indiana, was charged last year with felonies in both Indiana and Illinois after being accused of starting a long sexual relationship with a former student when she was 17.
Records obtained from District 206 show Giglio was placed on paid administrative leave for an investigation on the same day the district was served with a lawsuit, May 14, 2024. The school board voted to terminate his employment July 8, 2024.
In February 2021, a person stating they were a parent of a Bloom Trail student sent the district an anonymous email listing concerns with Giglio’s behavior. The parent claimed to have contacted Bloom Trail Principal Glynis Keene with concerns in December 2020 and wanted to know why Giglio was still teaching.
“This teacher, in my opinion, is unprofessional in the way he relates to the students,” the parent wrote, adding she got “bad vibes from him” when she was in the room while her daughter participated in his class remotely.
The parent said Giglio repeatedly referred to his students with pet names including “Babe,” “Honey” and “Sweetheart” and told students when they did not have school the following day that he would be available to “hang out” with them on Google Classroom.
“I heard him ask a female student for her phone number,” the parent also wrote. “I felt that was very inappropriate and encouraged the student to tell her parents. The parent is non-English speaking or I would have notified her myself.”
The parent claimed to have also asked District 206 parents and former students about their experiences with Giglio, hearing “many stories” that included Giglio sending students inappropriate text messages and calling them after they graduated to try and date them.
An attorney for District 206 declined to comment on their investigatory efforts into potential misconduct, citing pending litigation.
District warning
In a letter addressed to Giglio May 15, 2023, the district summarized a conversation officials had with Giglio the week before “to discuss allegations brought to me by several female students regarding your treatment of girls in your classes.”
The letter, signed by Keene, District 206 Superintendent Lenell Navarre and Assistant Principals Stephen Had and Timel Moore, said Giglio used his back office as a “cool down space” for students who are upset and offered them snacks. He agreed to no longer bring students into the office, the letter said.
“You should not be alone with students, unless in an open, public area,” the letter stated. “For staff safety and that of the students we must be mindful of the situations we put ourselves and them in. Staff should not put themselves in a position that is open to interpretation.”
About a year later, Giglio’s former student who met him in 2001, sued the school district.
The lawsuit alleges staff and administrators at the school knew or should have known about the inappropriate sexual relationship and said the woman was a victim of a known preventable hazard that school and district officials “created and allowed to continue,” alleging breach of duty by the district. The lawsuit and subsequent criminal cases brought against Giglio are pending.
More complaints about Giglio’s behavior resurfaced in the weeks following. Math teacher Brian Stipp emailed Keene May 20, 2024, about reports “some of my students shared with me today.”
One student reported Giglio telling her she was beautiful and sexy Stipp said the student told him she had told two other adults but didn’t believe “anything was done with that information.”
“The student shared that she felt scared to come forward with the information because ‘they could do something to me,’” Stipp said.
On the same day, an anonymous group of “community members of school District 206” sent a letter to board members explaining concerns about the lawsuit and requested the board take specific steps to handle concerns brought about Giglio.
The group attached the parent letter sent to district officials in 2021 and said Giglio was placed on administrative leave in 2017 after the “teammate and friend” of a member of the group came forward with a complaint about him. He later returned, the letter said.
The parents asked the district to provide documentation of every misconduct report involving Giglio since he began work for the district, or a statement there were no such complaints.
The group also requested Giglio not be paid during his administrative leave for the investigation into the lawsuit and that an investigation be launched regarding Keene’s knowledge of sexual harassment by Giglio.
“We go to school, send our kids to school and keep them in a district under the assumption that those in power at these schools have their kids’ best interest at heart and that they are safe,” the letter said. “We have not seen any evidence to support this assumption thus far in regards to Ronald Giglio.”
The district received another email May 24 from a former student who graduated the year before and said Giglio was her civics teacher when she was a freshman. She said he called her and other students “babe,” “honey” or “sweetheart” and would touch her as she was walking in or out of the classroom.
“He would touch or run my back, my shoulders, and once he even grabbed me by the hips to move me out of the way,” the former student reported.
She said on a day when she was feeling ill, rather than sending her to the nurse, Giglio told her to go sit in his closet and shut the door on her in the dark, suggesting she play with a set of “meditation balls.”
The former student added, “myself and other students would complain to other teachers at how he made us feel uncomfortable, and they would respond with ‘oh he’s just being friendly.’” She said she heard rumors of Giglio asking students for their phone numbers and trying to contact them after they had graduated.
“I wanted to share these experiences as I know how awful I felt and dreaded going to his class,” the former student said. “I hope that justice is served for those who are speaking out as they had all tried to tell the principal and staff at Bloom Trail at one time or another.”
Criminal charges
According to court records in the criminal case brought against Giglio in Illinois, a student who met Giglio in 2001, during her sophomore year of high school, began using Giglio’s classroom to store her belongings and then the two started communicating online “on a daily and nightly basis.”
The following school year, Giglio began practicing soccer with the student after school. Prosecutors said while they played soccer, Giglio began touching the student, including rubbing against her and touching her butt over her clothes. He then allegedly kissed her after someone scored a goal, and the two continued to engage in sexual contact multiple times in Giglio’s classroom.
On May 3, 2002, when the girl was 17, Giglio drove her home to Schererville, Indiana, because he wanted to see her in her prom dress, prosecutors said. The girl said her parents weren’t home and the pair went inside and he pushed her onto a bed and got on top of her, according to prosecutors.
The former student, who filed a lawsuit earlier this year, told police she and Giglio engaged in sexual activity on numerous occasions in Illinois and Indiana. The relationship continued for years until the she disclosed it to a therapist and realized what Giglio did was wrong, prosecutors said..
She recorded a conversation with Giglio in April, played for the judge during a court hearing July 2024, because she said she was scared Giglio and his sister were threatening her after she went to the high school with her allegations. Giglio denied on the recording threatening her and pleaded with her that he had not been “grooming” her and that she was just as much in this as he was.
She told him she was a virgin and had never slept with anyone before they had sex ahead of her prom, and he responded, “you are right, but don’t act like for a second that you didn’t know what you were doing the entire time,” the recording showed.
He then admitted on the recording that what he did was wrong and said he regretted beginning a relationship with her. The woman told Giglio that his sexual abuse of her has continued to cause her severe emotional distress.
“You don’t understand how much this has ruined my life,” she said on the recording.
If found guilty in Illinois, Giglio could face between four and 15 years in prison. In Indiana, he would face a maximum of six years in prison.
ostevens@chicagotribune.com