Oak Creek teacher sex assault case, Rachel Goodle sues district
OAK CREEK, Wis. - Former Oak Creek High School teacher Rachel Goodle, charged with sexually assaulting a student, filed suit against the district in an attempt to block the release of public records about her conduct. This, after a records request from FOX6 News.
For the first time since prosecutors charged her with second-degree sexual assault of a child, Goodle appeared in court Tuesday, Aug. 1 through her attorney after filing a lawsuit against the Oak Creek-Franklin Joint School District.
"We've at least established a right to have a temporary injunction in place," said Christopher Hartley, Goodle's attorney.
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Prosecutors accuse the 22-year-old of having sex with a student inside her classroom in December 2022.
FOX6 became aware of the allegations in late June. We wanted to know Goodle's disciplinary history and whether she was investigated before. After all, she was a public employee, so it's your right to know.
Oak Creek High School
FOX6 requested public records, and state law requires the district to inform Goodle of our request. Goodle then sued the district to block the release of the records.
"People want to know these things, and courts have universally said, ‘No. The public gets to find out what this person did, or sometimes, what they were even accused of doing,'" said Tom Kamenick, president of the Wisconsin Transparency Project, a law firm that focuses on open records.
On Tuesday, the judge ordered a temporary restraining order, preventing the district from releasing the records for two weeks.
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Kamenick said the ending could be different.
"So far, those lawsuits have never worked for those record subjects," said Kamenick. "Every single one of them I'm aware of that's been filed has been unsuccessful, and the records were still released."
The judge will hear arguments in the open records case on Aug. 17.