Child endangering misdemeanor charges have been filed against three staff members at Delphos Jefferson High School.
High school principal Chad Brinkman and staff members Maureen Rentz and Karissa Hoersten were arraigned on the child endangering charges. The charge stems from an incident that occurred on May 4th, 2021, when an alleged incident of neglect of a student took place.
The charges were filed this year and come from the Van Wert City Law Director's Office.
Brinkman, Rentz, and Hoersten have been suspended until the charges have been resolved, according to the school district.
According to a statement from the district’s Superintendent Doug Westrick, initial investigations were launched by the school district as well as law enforcement, and children services after the alleged incident occurred in May of 2021. The district concluded that they were unable to identify any instance of child abuse, child neglect, or other employee wrongdoings that jeopardized the safety of any child.
Evidence was then reviewed by the Van Wert County Prosecutors office in the fall of 2021, where the prosecutor's office ruled that no charges would be filed in the case.
In the statement provided to Your Hometown Stations, the school states that based on the evidence they have, they do not believe that the three individuals engaged in any activity that endangered the safety of the district's students, and later stating that unless the law director possesses evidence that has been withheld from the district, they are confident that the three employees will be exonerated from these charges.
The three high school staff members will appear in court next in early February.
Update/Clarification: Due to the pending case, no details have been released at this time by either the school district or the city law director.
The district's full statement: On May 4, 2021, children services opened an investigation into alleged neglect of a student at Delphos City Schools. The investigation was focused on three District employees. Since the inception of the investigation, the District has cooperated with all requests made by law enforcement and children services. Since the District’s primary concern is the safety of its students, the District also conducted its own investigation into the alleged wrongdoing. Through its internal investigation, the District reviewed all the evidence that it provided to law enforcement and children services, interviewed several individuals with personal knowledge of the alleged misconduct, and requested that children services provide the District with any additional evidence not in the District’s possession. The District finalized this portion of its investigation prior to the start of the 2021-2022 school year to ensure that all of its students were being placed into safe classrooms. Based on the District’s internal investigation, it was unable to identify any instance of child abuse, child neglect, or other employee wrongdoing that jeopardized the safety of any student. In the fall of 2021, the Van Wert County Prosecutor’s office reviewed the available evidence. Similar to the District’s conclusion, the Van Wert County Prosecutor’s office decided not to pursue any criminal charges against these three employees.
Despite the results of the District’s internal investigation and the decision of the Van Wert County Prosecutor’s office, the Van Wert City Law Director recently decided to pursue misdemeanor charges of child endangerment against these three employees. Based on all the evidence currently available to the District, including its requests to law enforcement and children services for any additional evidence, the District does not believe that these three individuals engaged in any activity that endangered the safety of the District’s students. Nonetheless, in an abundance of caution, Delphos City Schools has suspended these three employees from all duties that involve the care, custody, and control of children, until these criminal charges are resolved. Unless the Law Director possesses evidence that has been withheld from the District throughout this entire process, the District is confident that these three employees will be exonerated from these charges in the near future.
