SPOKANE, Wash. – “The moment people found out I was gay, everything went south,” former Brentwood fifth-grade teacher Jacob Knight said.
Knight, 25, started his teaching career very early, working for the Mead School District he graduated from. For the first three years of his career, he earned high marks according to evaluations shared with NonStop Local, outwardly appearing to be a straight man, even marrying a woman.
“I was the young, straight male teacher, and that was a really big deal,” he said.
Knight was so highly regarded, award in November of 2021.
“I’ve talked with parents who have had Mr. Knight previously,” Kate Heidergott, a parent of one of Knight’s final classes at Brentwood. “They would say, if you can request, try to get Mr. Knight, he’s amazing.”
Knight says his class would often do an exercise called ‘highs and lows’, where students share their recent experiences. In January’s session, he let his kids know he was going on a date. In February, the kids asked him how it went.
“They kept saying, what was she like, what was her name, and I said, ‘How would you feel if it was a she and not a he?’,” Knight said. “I showed them a picture of my partner at the time. My sexuality never came up again after that.”
News broke quickly.
“Multiple parents called complaining that I was oversharing personal details about my dating life with my students,” Knight said.
The newly-out teacher recalled multiple meetings where his immediate superior told him to “be careful.” The school district said “(the) conversation with Mr. Knight was about maintaining professional boundaries in regards to sharing details about his personal life.”
“I remember asking her and saying, ‘When I was getting married, I did the exact same thing I’m doing right now, on highs and lows, I’d talk about what my fiance and I were doing,’ and I said, ‘I’m not doing anything different’,” Knight said.
The district said they’d also received a complaint when Knight talked about his former wife.
“A parent shared a concern verbally to the building principal. This concern was also shared with Mr. Knight,” Todd Zeidler, a media representative for the school wrote.
“That never happened,” Knight said. “I was never spoken to about any form of ‘oversharing’ when it was with my ex-wife.”
Before summer break, Knight put up a pride flag in his room, which he says drew unwanted attention from parents. In November, Knight took down the flag, not feeling support from the school.
In December, the school district initiated an investigation into Knight about the flag.
“A student and a parent accused me, that when I took my pride flag down, the accusation was that I told students they weren’t allowed to tell their parents about it,” Knight said.
They pulled aside his fifth-grade students to ask them a laundry list of questions.
“I was actually surprised at the amount of questions that they asked,” Heidergott, who joined her fifth grader in the interview, said. “They started by asking questions about Mr. Knight removing the pride flag that he had in his classroom and they asked questions like ‘Did Mr. Knight remove the flag with you all in the classroom? Did you just show up to class with it gone?’”
Then the questions started getting more specific.
“‘Does Mr. Knight ever tell you about his family? Does Mr. Knight ever tell you about what he does outside of school? Does he show you pictures? Does Mr. Knight wear certain types of clothing? Does he wear pink clothing?,’” Heidergott said. “Some of the questions I thought were inappropriate.”
Some of the questions the school district confirmed were asked included:
“Do you recall Mr. K sharing a picture of pink overalls with you?”
“Do you recall when Mr. K took down the flag he had hanging in his classroom? What can you tell us about that?”
“Does he seem to single out certain students or a certain student more than others?”
“Did Mr. K treat girls and boys differently? If so, how so?”
Knight says he’s expecting a complete list of the questions via public records request on Thursday.
“I think the reality is Mead performed an illegal investigation by violating my civil liberties,” Knight said. “They know that and they’re aware of that.”
Over winter break, Superintendent Travis Hanson sent an email to parents, saying “it appears that the students’ concerns resulted from some level of misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the teacher’s comments.”
NonStop Local reached out to the Mead School District on Tuesday and asked about the investigation into Mr. Knight. They responded in an email stating “it is inaccurate to characterize the investigation into Mr. Knight’s classroom as having found nothing of concern,” but also stated “we are not able to get into any deeper details about staff or personnel-related items.”
Knight says, right after the investigation was in the rear-view, the final straw came when a student and parent accused him of unwanted touching.
“The only physical contact I had with students is every morning, on camera in the hallway,” he said. “Students can choose whether they want to give me a high-five, a side hug or a peace sign if they don’t want any physical contact. This student would come give me a side hug just about every single day and then turned around and accused me of making physical advances on her.”
The district said they strongly discourage any staff-initiated hugs, pointing to their policies on understanding boundaries.
Knight says it was difficult in the classroom with the student the next day, despite all parties involved wanting her moved to a different class.
“That was probably the hardest day of my career,” he said. “Sitting 30 to 40 feet from this student the entire day.”
The school district says the student wasn’t automatically removed from the classroom, because there was no student disciplinary action. After meeting with the girl’s father, the move away from Knight’s classroom was finalized, Knight said.
Amidst a mounting pressure which Knight says dramatically hurt his mental health, the Mead School District presented Knight with an offer. He agreed to step back from his duties and stay on the payroll until he officially resigns on August 31. In exchange, he waived his right to sue the school district.
“They committed a crime and then they had this magical agreement pop up,” Knight said.
As of now, Knight doesn’t regret taking the deal, and is open to teaching again.
“Up until this year, and even up until the investigations happened, I would get giddy about going to work every morning,” Knight said. “The magic of teaching is still really special to me. I’d just have to be in a really safe, supportive setting.”
