Westchester School District Lawsuit: Dawn Chester Abuse, 20 Years On

A former student has sued Westchester School District 92½ over allegations that its administrators knew in 2000 that teacher Dawn Chester was sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl and chose to let Chester quietly resign rather than report her, allowing Chester to teach at another suburban middle school for more than two decades. The Westchester School District Dawn Chester lawsuit was filed in Cook County Circuit Court in early November 2024 by the law firm Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard on behalf of the now-37-year-old plaintiff, who has not been publicly identified.¹ The named defendants include the district, Westchester Middle School, the Westchester School Board, and Chester herself.²

What the Lawsuit Alleges About the Abuse

According to the complaint (Case No. 2024 L 012519), Chester began writing personal letters to the plaintiff, then a sixth grader, in 1998. Chester, who at the time went by the names Dawn Lach and Dawn Anderson, was a science teacher and girls’ volleyball coach at Westchester Middle School from 1993 to 2000.³

The suit alleges the conduct escalated from grooming to physical sexual abuse over roughly two years, beginning with inappropriate touching during an overnight school camp in Wisconsin in 1998 and continuing on school grounds. During a school-sanctioned volleyball team sleepover in the plaintiff’s seventh-grade year, Chester allegedly had the student lie on an air mattress with her while other children were elsewhere.² Court filings describe dozens of letters Chester wrote to the student in which she called the girl “Brat,” requested secrecy, and complained when the girl did not respond or seemed angry.³

What the District Is Alleged to Have Known

The central claim against the district is that administrators learned about Chester’s behavior in 2000 and chose not to involve law enforcement. The plaintiff’s mother discovered Chester’s letters and brought them to school officials that year.⁴ The lawsuit further alleges that at least three students and one parent had previously notified the superintendent about the air mattress incident during the volleyball sleepover, and that nothing was done.²

The negligence theory is straightforward. The suit alleges the district and its employees violated their position of trust by failing to address reports of abuse and by allowing Chester to resign without reporting her to authorities, enabling her to keep teaching. Plaintiff’s attorney David Rashid said, “Those who were in a position of authority could have prevented this, could have stopped this, could have limited this, and didn’t do so.”⁴ Rashid has also said Chester may have had additional victims during her later career and invited anyone with information to contact the firm.²

How the District Has Responded

The district has confirmed it was aware of “concerning written notes and email communications” between Chester and the student in 2000 and that it “worked with the family to address their concerns.” Its legal team recommended Chester resign, and she did so in August 2000.³ According to the lawsuit, no one at the district reported Chester to police or to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.⁴

Westchester School District 92½ Superintendent Philip Salemi has argued the legal picture in 2000 was different. The district stated that current Illinois School Code provisions requiring districts to report teachers to the State Superintendent when there is reasonable cause to believe they committed sexual misconduct involving a minor did not exist at the time of Chester’s resignation.⁴ The district also said no current administrators were employed there in 2000 and that it has no record of ever being contacted by a prospective employer seeking a reference for Chester.³ The district has acknowledged the lawsuit but declined to comment on pending litigation.

Why the 20 Years After Matter to the Case

After resigning from Westchester Middle School, Chester was hired by Berkeley School District 87, where she worked as a science teacher and volleyball coach at Northlake Middle School for more than 20 years.¹ Her ability to continue teaching is at the heart of the lawsuit’s negligence claims. Without a report to police or DCFS, and without any flag on her departure, the plaintiff argues there was no record that could have prevented Chester from being hired to work with children elsewhere.

Chester’s second career went undetected until June 2024, when the plaintiff saw Chester on social media, realized she was still teaching at Northlake Middle School, and reported the historical abuse to the Westchester Police Department.⁵

The Parallel Criminal Case

The civil lawsuit runs alongside a separate criminal prosecution. Chester, 54, was taken into custody on August 19, 2024, and was indicted by a grand jury on a felony charge of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim under 18 by someone in a position of trust.⁵ She has pleaded not guilty.³ Two days before her arrest, Berkeley School District 87 placed her on administrative leave after Westchester police notified the district she was the subject of a pending investigation.⁶ As of the most recent reporting, no trial date has been publicly announced in the criminal case, which is being handled in the Cook County criminal court system.⁷ Criminal charges and the civil lawsuit are separate proceedings with different burdens of proof and different outcomes; the civil case can go forward regardless of what happens in the criminal one.

How Illinois Reporting Law Has Changed Since 2000

The district’s defense turns partly on a gap in Illinois law that has since been closed. In 2000, there was no specific provision in the Illinois School Code requiring a district to report a teacher’s suspected sexual misconduct to the State Superintendent or to regional superintendents when the teacher resigned or was dismissed.

In 2019, Public Act 101-531 established new mandatory reporting procedures, including authority for school boards to immediately dismiss employees who willfully or negligently fail to report suspected child abuse, and for the Illinois State Board of Education to suspend an educator’s license for up to five years for such failures. Further reforms came through “Faith’s Law.” Public Act 102-0676, effective December 2021, added the first definition of “sexual misconduct” to the School Code and expanded the criminal definition of grooming. Public Act 102-0702, effective July 2023, mandated employment history reviews for all school employees and required district superintendents to report license holders to state officials when there is reasonable cause to believe they committed sexual misconduct.⁸

Separately, the Illinois Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act now requires that when a school district employee reports another employee’s conduct and that person later applies to a different district, the superintendent must disclose that a report was made, provided the allegations were not deemed unfounded by DCFS.⁹ Had these provisions been in place in 2000, the Westchester district would have been required to flag Chester’s departure for authorities and for any future employer.

The Precedent the Lawsuit Runs On

The most directly relevant Illinois precedent is the 2012 Illinois Supreme Court decision in Doe-3 v. McLean County Unit District No. 5. The court held that a school district can be liable when it misstates a teacher’s employment history in a way that conceals the real reason for the teacher’s departure. The case involved a teacher who pleaded guilty to aggravated criminal sexual abuse of students in two districts; the McLean County district had falsely stated the teacher worked his entire final year, implying his departure was routine.¹⁰

Writing for the majority, Justice Anne M. Burke reasoned that “where a teacher who is known to have abused children is hired in a teaching position at another school, the likelihood that students at the next school will be abused by that teacher is within the realm of reasonable probability.”¹⁰ The Westchester situation is factually different, since the district says it was never contacted for a reference and never provided one. But the underlying question, whether a district’s failure to act after learning of misconduct can create liability for harm suffered at a subsequent school, is the same question this lawsuit puts before the court.

1
WGN TV. Westchester School District Sued After Former Teacher Charged With Sexual Abusing Student
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Salvi Law. Lawsuit: Suburban Teacher Sexually Abused Middle School Student From 1998-2000
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CBS News Chicago. Westchester School District Lawsuit Sexual Abuse Dawn Chester
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ABC 7 Chicago. Westchester School District Sued After Former Teacher Dawn Chester Charged With Sexual Abusing Student
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WGN TV. Suburban Teacher Arrested for Sexually Abusing Middle School Student
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Berkeley School District 87. Superintendent Communication
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Fox 32 Chicago. Westchester School District Sexual Abuse Lawsuit
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Illinois State Board of Education. Faith’s Law
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Illinois General Assembly. Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act
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Education Week. District Faces Liability for Passing Along Bad Teacher, Court Says