{"id":201989,"date":"2026-04-18T21:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T21:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/201989\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T21:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T21:14:10","slug":"nyc-schools-watchdog-got-nearly-900-sexual-misconduct-complaints-in-2025-and-only-substantiated-62","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/201989\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC schools watchdog got nearly 900 sexual misconduct complaints in 2025 — and only substantiated 62"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly 900 sexual misconduct or inappropriate behavior complaints were filed against city Department of Education staffers last year, records show.<\/p>\n

Only 157 of the 897 complaints were investigated, and just 62 of the cases were substantiated, the DOE\u2019s independent watchdog announced in its 2025 annual report.<\/a><\/p>\n

SCI investigated an even smaller percentage of complaints the previous year, with just 154 investigations out of 1,000 sexual misconduct complaints \u2014 producing 35 substantiated accusations, according to their 2024 report.<\/p>\n

\"HighSCI only investigated a fraction of their sexual misconduct complaints. EFStock \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

\u201cThese reports of sexual misconduct are deeply disturbing, but even more disturbing is the lack of investigation,\u201d City Councilmember Vickie Paladino (R-Queens) told The Post. \u201cA full accounting of these incidents is owed to our students and parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

The office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation defended its record: \u201cAll allegations of inappropriate conduct are reviewed and evaluated when received. It is not unusual to refer the majority of complaints\u201d elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Cases that the SCI doesn\u2019t investigate could be referred to the NYPD, the Department of Justice or other agencies, a SCI rep noted.<\/p>\n

SCI\u2019s 17% investigation rate exceeds the 5% of probes conducted by the city Department of Investigation, the office contended.<\/p>\n

\"DouglasLibrarian Douglas T. Von Hoppe was accused of inappropriate relationships with his students. Douglas Von Hoppe\/ Facebook<\/p>\n

The agency will decline to investigate a claim on \u201cvery rare occasions,\u201d such as when the accused is dead, already in jail or already fired from the DOE, they added.<\/p>\n

Of the cases substantiated in 2025, 23 involved a DOE staffers who allegedly engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a student on a personal cell phone or through social media, the report stated.<\/p>\n

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The SCI has recommended the DOE ban all employees, volunteers, or vendors from engaging with students via personal cell phone or social media.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s crop of accused sleazy staffers brings\u00a0the total number<\/a>\u00a0of inappropriate or sexual misconduct cases in the DOE to 183 since 2018.<\/p>\n

Some of the previous accused pervs investigated by SCI include:<\/p>\n

Dulaina Almonte<\/a>, who\u00a0was axed from Harry S. Truman High School in the Bronx in 2020 after texting a student 28,000 times, and defiantly told The Post the DOE could \u201csuck a big pr\u2013k,\u201d\u00a0and \u201ccan\u2019t f\u2013king touch me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three DOE staffers who were\u00a0accused of having sex<\/a>\u00a0with students in Urban Assembly\u00a0Early College High\u00a0School\u00a0of Emergency Medicine.<\/p>\n

Queens graphic design teacher Daniel Matuk, who allegedly commented on one William Cullen Bryant HS student\u2019s \u201cbrown a\u2013\u201d and \u201clittle butt\u201d in more than 700 messages between 2022 and 2023. \u201cI blocked Daniel Matuk\u2019s number after graduation, but have been living with trauma because of what had happened,\u201d the victim told investigators.<\/p>\n

Anthony Schiliro, a history teacher at the elite Eleanor Roosevelt HS in Manhattan, who investigators said sent \u201cexcessive\u201d late-night texts to three female students and joked about one of them having sex in front of the other two.<\/p>\n

Bronx music teacher Scott Biski, 50, was accused of grooming and sexually abusing a female student, and sending her nearly 700 messages, according to investigators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 900 sexual misconduct or inappropriate behavior complaints were filed against city Department of Education staffers last year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[57,9,56,63,65,64,5271,19979,5181,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-201989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-metro","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-ny","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-nyc-headlines","13":"tag-nyc-news","14":"tag-schools","15":"tag-sex-scandals","16":"tag-teachers","17":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}