{"id":16164,"date":"2025-10-22T20:22:41","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T20:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/16164\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T20:22:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T20:22:41","slug":"wisconsin-grooming-law-could-borrow-from-illinois-florida-definitions-wisconsin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/16164\/","title":{"rendered":"Wisconsin grooming law could borrow from Illinois, Florida definitions | Wisconsin"},"content":{"rendered":"

(The Center Square) \u2013 The definition of grooming in a new law being proposed in Wisconsin will include influence from a 2021 Illinois law and a 2024 law passed in Florida, according to the bill\u2019s sponsor.<\/p>\n

Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie, spoke with News Talk 1130-WISN on Wednesday, asking questions on behalf of The Center Square about Nedweski\u2019s proposal, which she has begun pushing after a series of stories from Madison\u2019s Capital Times showed<\/a> flaws in the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction\u2019s process of investigating sexual misconduct and grooming cases.<\/p>\n

DPI said in a Friday statement<\/a> that grooming and professional boundary violations aren\u2019t included in current statute in the definition of immoral conduct, \u201climiting our agency\u2019s ability to obtain critical pieces of information.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the statutory definition of immoral conduct is \u201cconduct or behavior that is contrary to commonly accepted moral or ethical standards and that endangers the health, safety, welfare, or education of any pupil.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would beg to differ,\u201d Nedweski said in her Wednesday radio interview. \u201cI might say \u2018Gee, I think grooming and professional boundary violations certainly are contrary to commonly accepted moral and ethical standards.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m concerned that the state\u2019s superintendent of schools is saying maybe they don\u2019t fall under that standard. It\u2019s very concerning and I\u2019m hoping to get an answer on that tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Illinois grooming law, dubbed Faith\u2019s Law, passed the Legislature unanimously in 2021 before being signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker.<\/p>\n

That law<\/a> requires school districts to create a code of conduct for teachers to protect students from misconduct and also includes the requirement of a resource guide for parents that must be posted on the school’s website and listed in the school’s handbooks.<\/p>\n

The definition is \u201cwhen he or she knowingly uses a computer online service, Internet service, local bulletin board service, or any other device capable of electronic data storage or transmission, performs an act in person or by conduct through a third party, or uses written communication to seduce, solicit, lure, or entice, or attempt to seduce, solicit, lure, or entice, a child, a child’s guardian, or another person believed by the person to be a child or a child’s guardian, to commit any sex offense \u2026 to distribute photographs depicting the sex organs of the child, or to otherwise engage in any unlawful sexual conduct with a child or with another person believed by the person to be a child.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Florida law passed the House unanimously, the Florida Senate amended it and it passed unanimously and then 11 representatives voted against the final bill because it changed the word \u201cgrooming\u201d to \u201charmful communication to a minor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to do the best we can to have a comprehensive definition of what grooming is in the statute once we introduce the bill and then we will have different levels of penalty for different types of interactions,\u201d Nedweski said, noting that seven or eight states already have \u201cgood laws\u201d on the topic that Wisconsin can learn from.<\/p>\n

She said there are multiple advocacy groups that can conduct professional development for teachers are the correct professional boundaries.<\/p>\n

Attempts by The Center Square to reach DPI the Wisconsin Education Association Council were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square) \u2013 The definition of grooming in a new law being proposed in Wisconsin will include…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13809,2353,13808,265,13806,28,30,29,2161,3985,712,10445,99,13811,13807,13805,8573,7331,13810],"class_list":["post-16164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-bill-law","tag-child","tag-communication","tag-crime","tag-ethics","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-government","tag-justice","tag-law","tag-misconduct","tag-politics","tag-public-records","tag-sex-and-the-law","tag-sexual-grooming","tag-social-issues","tag-teacher","tag-wisconsin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}