Our Harmful Coaching series took a step back to the late 1990’s and early 2000’s to shed light on a disturbing trend. From the disclosures of a group of girls (now women) in one small school district, we learned how students, staff, board members and administrators were groomed into a pattern permissive of child sexual abuse and void of accountability for adult perpetrators. Instead of criminal charges, accused perpetrators at Little Axe Public Schools received new jobs, and sometimes promotions, within other districts.
In Part 1 of Harmful Coaching, victim turned advocate Ashley Rolen ended a 4-year battle to be heard. Rolen shared her story from 22 years prior as she and a friend were followed by teacher/coaches Michael Allen and Shawn Finch to Texas during a high school spring break trip. According to Rolen, the girls were drugged and sexually assaulted. Rolen firmly identified Allen, then softball and baseball coach at Little Axe Public Schools, as her perpetrator.
In 2002, shortly after Rolen’s tragic spring break trip, her mother, a Little Axe PS office employee at the time, reported the abuse to district administration. Like many other families, Rolen’s believed their report and a subsequent investigation would prohibit her accused from ever teaching or coaching within public schools again.
There is no evidence that Little Axe PS ever investigated. At the time, two trained police officers were actively working as School Resource Officers (SROs) for the small district, yet no report was ever made to local law enforcement.
In 2020, upon learning Allen and others suspected of abusing students had continued to work within public education, Rolen began a contact campaign that included law enforcement, school districts, the State Department of Education (OSDE) and her former female classmates. In June of 2023, Rolen submitted a collection of victim and witness statements from former Little Axe students to the OSDE.
The statements reveal a district administrative culture void of concern for children. Families were silenced and the accused were allowed to resign and move on to other districts. Known as passing the trash, the practice has allowed child sexual abuse to spread like a cancer through the body of OK public ed.
Our publication of Rolen’s story brought forward additional victims and even those who’d escaped direct sexual abuse at Little Axe yet now recognize the toxic and abusive culture for what is was. A former classmate of Rolen’s responded to her posting of the article on social media:
In Part 2, another Little Axe student revealed a wider culture of abuse, manipulation and lacking accountability at the school. “Sarah” was pursued by one staff member as a freshman, then, at the age of 15, reports being groomed into a sexual relationship with Michael Allen following the death of a classmate/teammate also suspected to have been similarly victimized.
Part 3 included additional disclosures of student sexual abuse at a hard-partying house in Norman shared by several Little Axe coaches. Additional victims and perpetrators were identified, along with further evidence that administrators were aware of the threat posed by their employees yet did nothing to stop it.
UPDATE: OSDE Steps Up to Investigate Harmful Coaches - Primary Perpetrator Surrenders Teaching Certifications
The OSDE, now under the leadership of State Superintendent Ryan Walters (R), recently commenced an investigation into the former coaches of Little Axe still employed within Oklahoma public schools.
After a 26-year career, hops among eight different school districts, multiple accusations of abuse and the known impregnation of a student-athlete, teacher and softball coach Michael Allen has chosen to surrender his six teaching certifications.
State Dept of Ed credential records for Michael P. Allen.
The State Board of Education voted to accept Allen’s surrendered credentials within their July 31st meeting (link to agenda). In the wake of this development, the OSDE can only confirm that their investigation into the statements collected and submitted by Rolen is ongoing.
Harmful Coaches Part 4 - Primed & Promoted: Former Coach, Now Superintendent, Accused of Inappropriate Relationships with Students
Perpetrator Pipeline: Former Victim Observed as Young Coach Entered Culture of Student Sexual Abuse
One Little Axe victim describes the grooming tactics used by Allen that, looking back, provided her with significant insight into the lifestyle and connection between the coaches of Little Axe at that time. According to Sarah (Part 2):
“This is how he (Allen) would make me believe that I was so special to him, he would call me while they were out at the bars…with all the other coaches…now looking back I know it’s because they had them a little pedophile ring going, right, of who could sleep with the most girls but he would always make me believe like he’s thinking about me so much that he even had to step away when he’s out hanging out with the guys to call me, make sure I could tell he was at the bar because it was loud.”
Sarah names Aaron Espolt, a student-turned-coach at the district, as regularly with the coaches group during those calls:
“He (Allen) was very much the center of their circle like you could tell he was the charismatic one they followed and they all looked up to…Not just the Aaron Espolts of the world who was a student at the time, coming up under him. He (Allen) taught him (Espolt) all of the ways, apparently…He (Espolt) was at the bars with Mike (Allen) and them every night.”
Espolt graduated from Little Axe High School in 1999, while Sarah was a freshman, was hired by the district as a coach while attending classes at a nearby college and then became a Little Axe certified teacher/coach.
New Whistleblowers Refute Now Superintendent’s Statement Claiming No Knowledge of Student Sexual Abuse
Espolt, now the superintendent of Shawnee Public Schools, objected to this outlet’s previous reporting (Part 1) concerning his continued association with Allen, hiring of Allen and his wife at Cleveland PS (2016), and our quotation from a recorded conversation Espolt initiated with Rolen following her disclosure of rape by Allen to the OSDE.
After reportedly being questioned by OSDE legal counsel concerning Rolen’s submissions, Espolt obtained Rolen’s phone number from a third party and contacted her. Within that recorded phone conversation (July 12th, 2021), and in response to Rolen’s accusation of rape against Allen, Espolt stated, “I’m not doubting anything you say…I just don’t want to be involved in it.”
On March 11, 2024, Gerard Pignato, a specialist in insurance law at Ryan Whaley Attorneys, sent a letter by email to this publication claiming to “represent Aaron Espolt in his individual capacity and in his capacity as superintendent of the Shawnee School District”, though the subject of the article did not involve Shawnee PS. Despite no accusation of abuse associated with Espolt within the article (Part 1), the letter threatened litigation should this publication fail to “immediately cease and desist your efforts to maliciously and wrongfully make such defamatory comments”.
The publication engaged both Espolt and his attorney within communications, stood by our reporting and the recording as indisputably accurate and appropriately sourced, and asserted the Oklahoma Citizens Participation Act which protects free speech and includes an anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) provision that would entitle the publication to both sanctions and attorney fees should a suit be brought with the intention of silencing either the publication or the victims reporting abuse within the series.
In the spirit of cooperation, the publication agreed to modify the article by including the following statement provided directly by Espolt:
“Dr. Aaron Espolt does not have knowledge of Micheal Allen acting inappropriately with staff or students.” - Dr. Aaron Espolt, Superintendent of Shawnee Public Schools (received via email 4/12/2024 at 12:22 p.m.)
Following the republication of the article containing Espolt’s added statement, others came forward to dispute his lack of knowledge concerning abuse perpetrated by fellow Little Axe coaches and directly accuse Espolt as having engaged in inappropriate behavior and relationships with previous female students at multiple districts during his early career.
Whistleblower 1: Being only a few years older than many Little Axe High School students during his own transition from student to lay coach for the district, Espolt is reported to have continued to date students outside of official district policy. A former Little Axe student was interviewed and reported having a sexual relationship with Espolt, including at least one encounter on school grounds, while he was a coaching staff member and she was a student.
She states Espolt broke up with a younger student to date her. As a 17-year-old and without her parents’ knowledge, she and a female classmate accompanied coaches Espolt, Allen and Finch to Brownsville, Texas, during another spring break trip, even crossing over the border into Mexico to party and drink. The coaches provided the alcohol and hotel room for the minor girls.
According to this whistleblower, Espolt told her the coaches joked among their group about a couch in the fieldhouse office where the “magic happened” with female students. This former student states Espolt stressed the need to keep their relationship a secret, as he was “not supposed to date students”.
According to the former student, “Mike Allen did have relationships with students and Aaron Espolt knew all about it…he (Espolt) 100 percent knew about Allen’s behavior.” She also states Espolt lived with Allen for a time in the rented, party house in Norman exposed in Part 3 as the scene of other crimes against female students.
Whistleblower 2: Describing her experience with Espolt several years later, a second former Little Axe PS student, believed to have been a high school sophomore at the time, provided the following statement:
“(2003-2004) I was a student in Aaron Espolt's Algebra 1 class. I believe he was a baseball & basketball coach at the time. Espolt was very flirtatious and sometimes handsy with me in class for 3-4 months. I received a text message from him one day and the chats were super casual “school related” stuff for a while until one day he asked to meet him in a parking lot near lake thunderbird as I was passing through on my way back home from a basketball game. It was after dark. I stupidly figured what would it hurt and made the pit stop. He asked me to get in his vehicle because it was chilly outside. When getting in, he immediately tried to lean in to kiss me with his hand gripped tightly around my left thigh…. I got extremely scared and uncomfortable and I immediately exited the vehicle, got in my car and took off home. I told my grandmother about the incident. She went up to the school the very next day and filed a complaint. I don’t know with whom she spoke with, but my grandmother was very heated. In a matter of a week or two, he told the whole class that he got a new job at another school and this would be his last year. Never saw him again after that.”
This publication was able to verify the reporting of the incident to then Little Axe superintendent Barry Damrill, formerly a coach and science teacher at the district. According to a former district office employee who then worked directly with Damrill, Espolt was by that time a post-college, certified teacher, and the student’s grandmother (guardian) “repeatedly” and “persistently” contacted Damrill demanding Espolt’s immediate termination:
“Her grandma would call saying he’s calling her (grand)daughter, she thought there was something going on, she was always upset about it. Nothing was ever done. They just didn’t rehire him…It was towards the end of the school year, and he was just not rehired…Literally, they just didn’t hire you back or they would quietly tell them to resign and move on. That’s basically how it went.”
Additional reports beyond Little Axe: Espolt left Little Axe PS at the end of that school year (2003-2004) and was immediately hired by Boone-Apache Public Schools, again as a teacher and basketball, baseball and girls softball coach. Further credible reports suggest a continued pattern of inappropriate relationships with female students at Boone-Apache PS.
Boone-Apache Jr High softball coach Aaron Espolt (publicly available 2006 yearbook)
As an ethical standard, this outlet does not publicly identify victims of child sexual abuse who have not willingly and cooperatively told us their own stories. Therefore, all information involving allegations beyond Little Axe PS, as well as the above described whistleblower disclosures not part of the original statements provided to the OSDE by Rolen, have been forwarded to the OSDE for inclusion within their current investigation with permission from those sources.
Superintendent Responds to Allegations While Shawnee School Board Remains Silent
Superintendent Espolt and members of the Shawnee PS School Board were contacted to request comment and informed “whistleblowers have come forward to dispute Espolt's lack of knowledge concerning abuse perpetrated by then fellow coaches and/or directly accuse Espolt of having engaged in inappropriate behavior and relationships with female students during his previous employment at other districts.”
While the board did not respond to our request, Espolt provided the following statement and requested we publish it in its entirety or state only that he responded. The statement addresses his alleged knowledge of abuse by others but does not comment upon accusations concerning his own conduct.
Statement from Dr. Aaron Espolt, in its entirely:
“I, Dr. Aaron Espolt, am responding to the allegations indicated by V1SUT, "whistleblowers have come forward to dispute Espolt's lack of knowledge concerning abuse perpetrated by then fellow coaches..." I would like to be clear on the following:
I had no first hand knowledge of alleged abuse perpetrated by people mentioned in the articles, as I was not present when the alleged abuse occurred.
I had no second hand knowledge of alleged abuse perpetrated by people mentioned in the articles, as no statement was ever made to be about the alleged abuse.
I have no knowledge of any of the accusations from 20 years prior to the employment mentioned in the articles of when I served as a supervisor. Those accusations only came to my knowledge after I left the district for another position.
I have not had any association with the people mentioned in the articles since December 2019.
However, I would also like to make a statement about who I am, not just about what I am not or about what I do not know. What I know is that I am a strong follower of my Christian faith, I am a father of three children and husband of 11 years, and then I am a superintendent. I keep them in that order for the following reasons:
Being strong in my Christian faith allows me to act with Grace and Mercy. I am not a hypocrite who hides behind his faith and acts like they never make errors, I assure you I have made mistakes in life. Rather, I understand that I am flawed and allow God to lead me. Being a person who lives out the Fruit of the Spirit allows me to serve Christ as I aim to always be kind, bring joy and peace to others, have the patience of our Lord, and practice self-control. I try every day to practice these Fruits in my role to be a model for those around me. I would not act, or condone any acts, that are contradictory to these values.
I am a father of three amazing children under the age of nine and a husband to a loving wife of 11 years. Throughout my personal and professional life, I strive to always act in the best interest of my own children because my role places me responsible for other peoples' children. If I do what is best for my own childrens' safety and security, then I will be doing what is best for all the other children within my school district. Two of my three children have special needs and require constant attention and care, both of them girls. I would never allow anything to harm them and I act with that same love and care for all the children I care for within my school system. I place the utmost importance in protecting all the children I serve as if they are my own.
I am lastly a superintendent. I say that because I firmly believe if I get the first two right, then being a quality superintendent will take care of itself. If I act out the Fruits of the Spirit in my role and care for the safety and security of every child like I do for my own, I don't need to worry about being how I am going to be a strong leader, it is already taken care of.
I say this in response to any accusations that I would act unprofessionally or put children in harm's way, both directly or indirectly. I have dedicated my life to serving public education and will always do so with the highest of professional standards. I am not a perfect leader or person, but with God's help and prioritizing the safety and wellbeing of all children, I strive everyday to make our educational systems better. ***End of statement***”
- Dr. Aaron Espolt, Superintendent, Shawnee Public Schools (rec. Aug, 5, 2024, 2:05 PM via email)
Onward & Upward for Accused Coach: Cleveland PS Parents Raised Red Flags to School Board About Conduct of Supt Espolt & Coach Allen
After leaving Little Axe, Espolt taught and coached at Boone-Apache (2004-2006), Edmond (2006-2008) and Luther (2008-2011). Next, he became a principal and then superintendent at Olive PS (2011-2014). Espolt married an Olive PS elementary school teacher in 2013.
In 2014, Espolt was hired as superintendent of Cleveland PS (2014-2019) where, during 2016, the district hired both Michael Allen and his wife Sarah Allen, a former student athlete at Hinton PS who reportedly became pregnant by Allen during his time as her high school coach in Hinton.
A Cleveland parent and constituent provided this publication with a letter that was given to the Cleveland PS Board of Education during the time Espolt was superintendent and Allen was a teacher/coach within the district. The letter suggests the community had significant concerns about Espolt’s hiring of Michael Allen and the joint conduct of the two men while in Cleveland. The letter begins:
“Attn: Richard Forbes, Terry Spears, Danny Ward, Trudy Swalley, Shawn Chapman, and Aaron Espolt.
I was asked to write an anonymous letter in regards to Michael Allen and what I have seen/heard since my family has met him. The people parents/students are scared to speak out because they know it will not get anywhere going to Mr. Espolt as he and Michael are best friends. If nothing is done about this the letters will continue to get sent to more and more people. Next set of the same letters will go to the Cleveland American, OSSAA, and Tess Maune reporter with KOTV. At that point we will come out of our anonymous and demand something be done as we will not quit until we reach change. We cannot continue to sit back and allow what is going on in our community to our children to happen any longer. The people in this letter who are running and controlling our athletes need to go. They are not good individuals and lack honest character and integrity.”
The letter then outlines specific concerns about Michael Allen, then married, and the beginnings of his relationship with his current wife, Sarah (Chalfant) Allen, at Hinton HS:
“Sarah was pregnant with her and Michael’s child her senior year of high school and he was never charged for anything. No rape charges as the most current school employee faced. It was swept under the rug. You can easily do the math on this with her graduation year as you have access to and their first-born date of birth. What keeps this man from cheating on his wife now and having an affair with one our students?”
The “most current” case referred to in the letter involved former Cleveland PS paraprofessional Darla Raelene McCullough (45) who was convicted of felony second degree rape in 2018 and received a 10-year sentence for having an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old, male student. Then superintendent Espolt told News6 Tulsa he was quick to report the allegations to both police and the Department of Human Services, further stating:
"The safety and security of our students is a top priority – and the district does its due diligence to make sure students are protected. It’s unfortunate an employee took advantage of her privileges as a staff worker to manipulate the situation." - Cleveland PS Supt Aaron Espolt
Further, the letter to Cleveland school board members expresses concerns about the district’s vetting of Allen prior to his hire and outlines the personal relationship between Espolt and Allen:
“You would think Cleveland Public School would do a little background investigating when going through the hiring process but I would assume Michael didn’t get one as he is Mr. Espolt’s best friend. He was his best man at his wedding. Mr. Espolt would not want this information known as he thinks he can keep it secret… When Michael first came to Cleveland Public Schools he was brought in and announced as Mr. Espolt’s best friend, that’s how he introduced himself.”
This publication has verified that Allen served as a groomsman in Espolt’s 2013 wedding party.
The letter then describes alleged incidents in and around the Cleveland community of Allen and Espolt being observed as intoxicated in public. On December 12, 2019, Cleveland PS’s school board held a special meeting “to discuss the employment status of Aaron Espolt…and vote whether to notify Aaron Espolt, in writing, of his possible dismissal and the reason(s) that may exist for his possible dismissal” (access board meeting agenda below):
As previously reported, Espolt and Sarah Allen both resigned from Cleveland PS in the middle of the 2019-2020 school year. According to News8 (KTUL Tulsa), “Espolt wouldn’t discuss Allen’s resignation, and a school attorney wouldn’t say if the two are connected in some way.”
Saved from Scandal & Promoted By Then State Superintendent Hofmeister, Espolt Co-Authors State’s Woke Manual for School Improvement
Following Espolt’s mid-year, unexplained exit from Cleveland Public Schools, he was hired by then State Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister (R then D):
In 2020, Dr. Aaron Espolt then briefly moved to a newly created position at the OSDE under State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister. As Executive Director of School Design and Innovation, Espolt worked on a blueprint entitled Reimagining Excellence which purported to increase academic outcomes and school safety through social and emotional learning (SEL) and leadership.
As an Executive Director, Espolt was among the agency’s highest ranking employees. Despite Cleveland PS students performing below state averages within both of the state’s most utilized indicators during Espolt’s time as superintendent (2014-2019), Hofmeister hired him to “Reimagine Excellence” for Oklahoma’s public schools.
The Reimagining Excellence framework co-authored by Espolt places equity as its foremost priority and mentions the importance of keeping school climate and culture free from sexual harassment for staff, yet neglects to address the protection of students from internal predators.
Why would Hofmeister seek to save an embattled, recently resigned superintendent from an underperforming district? Was Espolt tasked with drafting what appears to be an OSDE plan for infusing progressive policies into Oklahoma’s schools, or perhaps recruited as part of a longer-term, political move meant to hide the establishment’s sins of the past and solidify their power over failing Oklahoma public education?
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Well it is a good thing substack does not require integrity and fact checking. Otherwise v1sut would not be able to publish anything. Clearly a political attack without merit on an exceptional superintendent.
That's crazy and I got to Shawnee high school too..
Well it is a good thing substack does not require integrity and fact checking. Otherwise v1sut would not be able to publish anything. Clearly a political attack without merit on an exceptional superintendent.