GOP attacks Evers over Snapchatting teacher

The governor’s race is going to get just a bit nastier.

That’s because state Republican officials are launching an attack on Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers for not revoking the license of a Beloit Turner High School teacher accused of sending sexually provocative Snapchat notes to a student. Evers is opposing GOP Gov. Scott Walker.

“This is a damning indictment of Tony Evers’ leadership and yet another stark example of his failure to keep kids safe in our schools,” said Alex Zimmerman, spokesman for the state Republican Party.

Walker’s team has been trying to build a case that Evers was too lax in his discipline of school officials guilty of inappropriate, immoral and even criminal acts. Evers has dismissed the criticism.

But this Beloit case may be messier than it initially appears.

An attorney for the Department of Public Instruction, which Evers oversees, said early on in the case that there was “substantial reason” to think the teacher engaged in “immoral conduct.” But, as it turns out, the teacher deleted her Snapchat account and none of her messages could be recovered. Also, the student to whom she was sending messages declined to testify against her.

Thomas McCarthy, a spokesman for the DPI, said his agency would reopen the case immediately if the student reverses himself and testifies in the case. “You bet,” McCarthy said.

What’s more, a staffer for a Republican state lawmaker, Rep. Amy Loudenbeck of Clinton, lobbied Evers’ staff in 2015 to hurry up the investigation so the former Beloit teacher could accept a new job.

But Zimmerman said there was still enough information to strip the teacher of her license: “The student-victim provided statements to the school district and the police about this behavior, and multiple other kids corroborated his story. What more cooperation does Tony Evers need to do the right thing?”

Reached Tuesday, the former teacher at the center of this latest attack, Dayleen Yoerger, was notably upset — sobbing throughout most of the interview — that her case is being used as a weapon in the governor’s race. She said at the time of the incident she was a 23-year-old teacher who was the victim of zealous school administrators.

“I definitely don’t think it’s fair,” Yoerger, who is now a stay-at-home mother, said of the GOP tactic.

Regarding the allegations, she labeled them “absolutely false.”

Records show Yoerger resigned her job as a family and consumer sciences teacher in January 2015 while under investigation for sending the student pictures of her posing in a bra or in a bathtub, holding alcoholic beverages or saying she would like to have sex with the boy.

In one, she supposedly told him if he could sneak away from a party, she would make it “worth his while.” The student and three of his friends went to authorities because he said he was “creeped out” by Yoerger’s behavior.

“She Snapchats me sexual things. She sends me close to nudes, but not fully showing anything,” the male student said in a written statement. “When she is sexting me, she says how she wants to have sex in her storage closet or meet somewhere.”

School district officials referred the matter to the Town of Beloit police, who dismissed the case because of a lack of evidence. A police report says Yoerger deleted her Snapchat account two days before law enforcement began its review. Snapchat staff members said they could not recover her messages.

Yoerger acknowledged Tuesday that she erred by sending Snapchat messages to the student, who she said was 15 or 16, without getting the district’s consent. She also said she did delete her account but said she didn’t send the messages described by the students. “It’s all false,” she said.

But Yoerger proved incredibly elusive during an interview with school district officials in mid-January 2015, refusing to answer questions about her messages to the boy or saying she did not recall them.

A week after the interview, she resigned. DPI officials launched an investigation shortly after that.

In a letter to the student’s parents in October 2015, DPI attorney Laura Varriale said she believed there was a strong case for revoking Yoerger’s license. “To be frank, I am concerned about this woman being in the educational system and feel strongly about pursuing revocation,” Varriale said.

But Varriale noted that the Snapchat messages had been deleted and that the student’s testimony would be the linchpin of the case.

On Tuesday, McCarthy said the student and his parents never agreed to the request. He said an administrative law judge almost certainly would have upheld challenges to the submission of student testimony to the Beloit school district and police.

“If we could make this case, we would pursue it immediately,” McCarthy said.

Yoerger was informed in February 2016 that Evers’ agency found no probable cause for believing she had violated the “immoral conduct” clause in state law. Her teaching license is good until June 30, 2019.