As a Kentucky State Police detective interviewed him in 2022, a former Beechwood teacher’s answers became quieter and shorter.
In a recording of the interview, obtained by LINK nky, the teacher admits to having sexual contact with and even grooming a graduating senior in 2020.
“So we can probably agree that there is a little bit of grooming going on with these two kids that led up to those massages, right? Like bringing them soup, getting them ice cream,” Det. Joseph Filiatreau asks the teacher during the 2022 interview.
“Mhmm,” replies the teacher, indicating his answer is yes.
LISTEN: You can hear a portion of the interview between KSP and the former teacher here
“Mhmm. Um. That concerns me,” Filiatreau says. “You being a teacher and being around K-12 kids all the time. You see what I’m saying?”
“That’s understandable,” the teacher replies.
“And that is kind of why I am here talking to you today,” Filiatreau says. “I mean one day you are going to have kids, would you want them to be around teachers that are going to try and give massages to them?”
“Of course not,” the teacher replies.
The teacher, according to documents obtained by LINK nky, resigned immediately following the interview.
Three years later, the announcement of Beechwood Superintendent Mike Stacy’s retirement helped bring to light the circumstances of that resignation. It’s also spotlighted how standards for teachers, district leaders and regular citizens are different depending on who you ask – and so are the consequences.
Let’s start at the beginning
The teacher, whom we are not naming because he has not been charged with a crime, worked at Beechwood from 2017 to the day of the interview in March 2022.
In the 2022 interview, the teacher described the uncertainty of transitioning to remote learning as COVID-19 shut down schools and businesses. By May, it was time for students to return their equipment as classes wrapped up.
The teacher described in the 2022 interview how he texted some students toward the end of the year about assignments, answering questions, offering guidance or returning equipment.
Eventually, he said in the interview, that led to him sending a photo of himself with his shirt off to a female student. It was, he said, part of an ab challenge, and he was sending the photo as a progress report of sorts.
Learn more details about the former teacher's relationship with the student in the video below:
He said he worked out at the same gym as the student, so sometimes they would find themselves on treadmills next to each other. Sometimes they would do ab workouts together.
The teacher then told Filiatreau that as the school year was coming to a close, sometimes students would come to the parking lot outside of his residence to turn in assignments or ask questions.
The female student was one of those students and, the teacher said in the recording, he and the student had sexual contact in the back of her car at least once. The female student was 18 when the contact occurred, according to the Kenton County Commonwealth’s attorney.
Those aware of the date or dates of the sexual contact disagree on whether it happened before or after the student had officially graduated, though according to Kentucky law, it doesn’t much matter: As long as a student is 18, it is not illegal for a teacher to have sex with that student.
“I don’t think it should be legal for teachers to ever have sex with students, but that’s not Kentucky law,” said Kenton County Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders.
If the student had been 17 when the contact occurred, Sanders said, the teacher would have been charged with a felony.
It is also not illegal for a teacher to groom a student, so even though the teacher admitted to the detective that his behavior could be considered grooming, the teacher didn’t violate Kentucky law.
Grooming, according to national anti-sexual violence organization RAINN, is a series of “manipulative behaviors that the abuser uses to gain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse, and reduce the risk of being caught.
“While these tactics are used most often against younger kids, teens and vulnerable adults are also at risk,” says RAINN’s website. “Grooming can take place online or in-person. It’s usually employed by a family member or someone else in the victim’s circle of trust, such as a coach, teacher, youth group leader or others who naturally have some interaction with the victim.”
This is where the differences in standards come in.
Standards for educators or those working in schools, Sanders told LINK nky, are higher than those for regular citizens, which is why an educator may lose their ability to be certified to work in schools even if they haven’t been charged criminally.
The teacher eventually did lose his ability to be certified to work in schools in Kentucky, but not until two years after his 2022 interview with the KSP and resignation from Beechwood Schools.
And that’s where retiring Superintendent Mike Stacy comes back into play.
Back to the present
LINK nky received a tip that the Education Professional Standards Board decided on June 4, 2025, that Stacy could not request his certification to work in Kentucky schools be renewed after his retirement, effective June 30.
The tip came in June after ongoing controversy over Stacy’s salary. That controversy came to a head after Stacy’s contract renewal last May, followed by the announcement of his retirement in March of 2025 with two years still left on his contract.
The standards board, which is part of the Kentucky Department of Education, wrote in its meeting minutes from the June 2025 meeting that “Stacy shall neither apply for, nor be issued, a teaching, administrative or emergency certificate in the commonwealth of Kentucky at any time in the future.”
The minutes do not provide a reason for the decision.
But through a records request, LINK obtained several documents, including a memo outlining the reasoning behind the board’s decision.
Stacy had been in the room for at least some of Filiatreau’s 2022 interview with the teacher and, according to the board, Stacy had a duty to report what he learned to the board itself.
Because Stacy didn’t report the teacher to the board, which is responsible for certifying certain public school employees, the board said he created an “unreasonably dangerous” situation for students in Kentucky.
“[The teacher] had a valid teaching certificate and could have taught in a classroom in the Commonwealth of Kentucky until June 4, 2024,” the memo states.
That date is when the teacher agreed to surrender his certification to work in schools in Kentucky, according to the board’s meeting minutes.
“Superintendent Stacy clearly neglected his duty to protect the students in the Commonwealth and his failure to act warrants sanction by the EPSB,” the memo concludes. “His serious lack of judgment created an unreasonably dangerous situation for all students in the Commonwealth.”
Stacy said in a rebuttal to the board’s decision that he was not in the room for the entirety of the interview.
“While present at most of the interview, I did arrive late and leave early,” Stacy wrote in the rebuttal. “I was not present for the ‘mhmm’ response to the question that would indicate grooming. Nor was I told by state police … that [the teacher] in any way admitted to doing anything at Beechwood.”
Also present at the time of the interview was then-high school principal Justin Kaiser, who was appointed superintendent of the district in May of this year. His first official day as superintendent is today.
Kaiser, upon further review of the recording, appears to be in the room for the entirety of the conversation.
But Kaiser did not face any repercussions because, according to the Kentucky Department of Education’s Jennifer Ginn, the Education Professional Standards Board’s “duty to report to the EPSB pursuant to KRS 161.120(3) is specific to the superintendent and does not apply to the principal.”
Whether state police are aware of or in the midst of an ongoing investigation, a superintendent is still required to report alleged abuse to the board.
Regardless, Stacy said, that’s irrelevant because he wasn’t in the room to hear the alleged abuse.
“I’ve always held and will continue to hold to the fact that no one affiliated with Beechwood did anything wrong with the information we were given in 2022,” Stacy said.
He also said the situation had been dragging on for years and that he wasn’t surprised to receive a settlement offer after he announced his retirement.
“Of course, I don’t like it and maintain there is nothing fair about it, but it’s better than the alternative I was facing,” Stacy said. “I’ve dedicated my entire career of 28 years to taking care of people’s children, and I have no interest in letting attorneys try to defend me by going back at one. There are times in life when winning isn’t winning, and I’m here to get it right rather than proving that I am right.”
Stacy’s personnel record at Beechwood shows that his performance was exemplary during the entirety of his tenure at the school, which was from 2015 to 2025.
‘Passing the trash’
Rep. James Tipton, a Republican from Taylorsville, sponsored bills to require teachers to disclose past investigations to future employees in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
None of the bills have passed, but, Tipton said, he once worked on a bill for six sessions before it finally passed, and now everyone thinks it’s “the greatest thing since apple pie.”
Tipton said the reason he’s so persistent with the bill is to make sure there’s an understanding of the issue.
“We always try to remind everybody that 99 percent of teachers and school employees are not who we’re after here,” Tipton said. “We’re just trying to protect students from the bad apples.”
Sometimes there are predators out there who go from school district to school district, Tipton told LINK nky.
Tipton said he knew someone “many years ago that had this happen to her. The family looked into it and found out the teacher had a similar accusation at another school district and just resigned and left, and the school district dropped the investigation, and nobody knew about it at the new school district.”
That’s why, Tipton said, one of the provisions in the most recent iteration of the bill was that once an accusation is made, a school district is required to complete the investigation.
“I was on a webinar recently on the subject, and one of the national people said there’s a term out there called ‘passing the trash,’” Tipton said. “And that’s essentially what was happening, and what does happen.”
So why would anyone be against a bill like this?
Tipton said he has learned more about what the concerns are each year he sponsors a bill about this topic.
“One of the major concerns is from one of the groups that represents the teachers,” Tipton said. “They’re concerned that the passage of the bill will lead to more false accusations. They assert that there are a lot of false accusations already going on out there.”
Tipton said it’s unfortunate that this happens, but he doesn’t think the legislation he’s looking to turn into law would increase such accusations.
“We’ve made some adjustments to the bill over time in response to some concerns,” Tipton said. “Most of the education community seemed to be on board with it.”
But the bill got just enough resistance in the end that it was put on hold again.
“So, we continue to work on the subject,” he said.
As for the 2026 legislative session?
“I would anticipate that it be brought up again next year,” Tipton said. “I’m debating whether or not to try and find another sponsor.”
A bill that did pass in the 2025 session was Senate Bill 181, which establishes a traceable communication system for electronic communication between school staff and students.
The bill prohibits staff from using personal communication platforms like social media or personal messaging apps for school-related communication with students without written parental consent. Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, a Republican from Smithfield, sponsored the bill.
All communication between students and school staff, according to the bill, must be traceable and accessible to parents and the district.
“The thing about Senate Bill 181 is it is intended to not only to protect students, but to protect teachers,” Tipton said. “This is a way to protect teachers from these false accusations where there is traceable communication.”
Now what?
The Beechwood Board of Education stands firmly behind Stacy and maintains that neither he, nor the district, did anything wrong.
“Beechwood does not condone employee misconduct, and Dr. Stacy never attempted to cover up or hide any alleged inappropriate behavior by the teacher in question,” says a statement provided to LINK nky through the school board’s attorney, Jeremy Deters.
The statement goes on to say that when the Kentucky State Police detective arrived unannounced to question the teacher, district administrators cooperated and gave KSP full access to school facilities and the teacher in question.
Statement of Beechwood Independent Schools by webeditors on Scribd
No arrest was made after the interview, the statement says, and Filiatreau said he would need to confer with Sanders. Though Stacy asked to see the student’s written statement that led to the interview, he was told the Kentucky State Police would not provide it.
“After the KSP detective left Beechwood, Dr. Stacy immediately met with the teacher who denied any misconduct,” the district statement says. “However, when Dr. Stacy advised he would need to open an investigation, the teacher elected to resign. The teacher never returned to the classroom or to Beechwood’s campus ensuring the safety of students and staff.”
Stacy maintains, according to the statement, that because neither he nor the district received any information from the state police or the Commonwealth’s attorney’s office, he did not reasonably believe there was anything he needed to report to the board.
“Dr. Stacy has been in public education for 28 years and has never previously been accused of any educator misconduct,” the statement concludes. “Dr. Stacy acknowledges he did not make a report but maintains he did not reasonably believe he had information that would warrant such a report, particularly when the KSP and the Kenton County Commonwealth Attorney’s office never followed up with any criminal proceedings.
“Beechwood has, and will continue to, put the safety and security of all students at the forefront.”
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, call the National Sexual Abuse Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. Locally, the Ion Center for Violence Prevention, which offers free services to those who have experienced sexual violance, intimate partner violence, child abuse and/or stalking can be reached at 859-491-3335.
LINK nky is a media partner of WCPO.com.
