Trust in our teachers top priority

People make mistakes. That’s one of the immutable rules when you sign up to run in the human race.

What distinguishes an honest mistake from an insidious one? How much does it matter that a serious mistake is followed by a lengthy period of good behavior — at least, the appearance of good behavior? If you’re in the business of hiring, how high are your standards for character? What level of risk are you willing or even obligated to incur?

These are all fair questions in the case of former Coeur d’Alene teacher Jeffrey Lynn Kantola, and they are questions Coeur d’Alene School District administrators must reassess and learn from.

District officials knew or should have known that Kantola’s chiropractic license in Washington was revoked in 2004 after he admitted to having sexual relationships with a patient and an employee, then failed to comply with terms of a suspension order. Part of the suspension order required Kantola to receive at least two years of treatment from a therapist experienced in treating sexual problems. Further, Kantola wasn’t allowed to treat female patients without a female chaperone present.

Yet that background didn’t raise sufficient red flags to prevent a Tennessee school district from hiring Kantola, where he taught for four years. Nor did it dissuade the Idaho Department of Education from licensing him in 2015, or from the Coeur d’Alene School District hiring him the same year. Kantola was placed on leave last October and eventually resigned, but not before the teachers’ union rallied around him. The union criticized this newspaper for reporting on Kantola’s checkered past and scrutiny from parents who were concerned because a man who couldn’t treat female patients was entrusted with classrooms of high school kids. That Kantola received a $30,000 settlement in January, a fact disclosed by a Press public records demand, did not help the matter slip silently away. And the story, it turns out, still was not over.

On Friday, The Press reported that Kantola is facing child sex crime charges. He is of course innocent until proven guilty, but the court-sealed case does nothing to exonerate those in the school district who so ardently defended his hiring and continued employment.

There is no foolproof character test, only predictors based on past performance. Part of the panoply of human mistakes includes errors in judgment when hiring — something we at The Press understand because we, too, have made serious hiring mistakes. But school district standards have to be the very highest because their employees are entrusted with the health and safety of children.

Just as the pain from an embezzlement can effect more stringent financial policies and procedures, we urge all Kootenai County school districts to rigorously examine their hiring practices in light of the Kantola case. This isn’t about saving settlement money. It’s about securing kids’ safety.