As teachers leave Kentucky classrooms at an alarming rate, the GOP-led Legislature is hoping to entice more people into the profession with loan forgiveness and student stipends.(Jess Clark / LPM )As the 2026 Kentucky General Assembly approaches its final weeks, lawmakers are considering several mea sures to address a pernicious problem in Kentucky schools: sexual misconduct by educators.The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting has spent the last year highlighting the issue. The third season of KyCIR’s podcast, Dig, revealed 18 years of child sex abuse allegations against two Louisville educators and football coaches, both of whom were still employed by Jefferson County Public Schools when KyCIR’s investigation began. The four-part podcast uncovered systemic failings by schools, police and state social services that allowed the alleged abuse to continue, despite reports from middle and high school girls.In February, KyCIR published an investigation into sexual abuse and grooming allegations in Shelby County Public Schools, where former students say there is a longstanding culture that is permissive of sexual misconduct and protects alleged perpetrators.Here are several proposals from lawmakers and where they stand.Anti-grooming legislationHouse Bill 4, sponsored by Republican Rep. Marianne Proctor, of Union, would define and criminalize so-called “grooming” behaviors — tactics abusers use to gain the trust of children, desensitize them to sexual abuse and keep the abuse hidden. Researchers say grooming usually precedes sexual assault. For example, an adult may make sexual comments or ask about a minor’s sexual history to test boundaries and normalize sexual discussions before attempting sexual contact.“What this bill seeks to do is to stop that behavior before it progresses to sexual assault,” Proctor told a Senate committee last week.The measure would make it a felony, with up to 10 years in prison, for an adult in a position of “authority or special trust,” such as an educator, coach or church leader, to groom a child. Other adults not in positions of special trust could only be found guilty of grooming children 13 and under.Lawmakers added exemptions to protect legitimate conversations about sex education.Under HB4, prosecutors would have to prove that the pattern of a person’s behavior was intended to induce a child into a sexual act or develop an “intimate or secretive relationship.”Lewis Kelly, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Boone and Gallatin Counties, who supports the measure, said the requirement to prove intent is an “incredibly difficult barrier.” But he said there was at least one recent case in a Boone County middle school, in which Kelly believed police could have charged a former teacher with grooming under the proposed bill.In that case, Proctor said the former teacher groomed a 13-year-old and left a gift in her locker. She said the only charges prosecutors could bring were for illegally accessing the child’s locker combination in a school computer database. The former teacher, Kevin Niehaus, was found guilty of fourth-degree unauthorized computer access, a misdemeanor.According to a March 2026 report from Enough Abuse, 15 states have laws criminalizing grooming as a felony. That does not include Indiana, where lawmakers recently passed a law criminalizing sexually grooming children 13 and under as a misdemeanor.A ban on non-disclosure agreementsFor years, Republican Rep. James Tipton has tried to pass a provision to ban school districts and private schools from hiding sexual abuse and misconduct allegations through nondisclosure agreements. Advocates for student safety say schools across the state use these agreements to silence students who are victimized by school staff.“Silence is the point when a school uses an NDA in any case involving a student,” Laura Wills-Coppelman told a Senate committee last week. “It shifts the priority from the protection of children to the protection of the institution.”Wills-Coppelman is the co-founder of Institutional Complicity Kentucky (ICKY), which supports better protections for children against sexual abuse in schools, churches and other youth-serving organizations. She was one of several women featured in KyCIR’s report about alleged sexual misconduct in Shelby County Public Schools.Lawmakers added a ban on nondisclosure agreements to House Bill 253, a measure that creates new requirements for reading instruction. The new version of HB 253 still needs approval by the full Senate. It would then need another final concurrence vote from the House to be sent to the governor.The anti-NDA language was lifted from House Bill 102. That bill is a version of legislation Tipton has filed each year since 2023 seeking to ban NDAs and tighten reporting requirements around educator sexual misconduct. HB 102 has not had a committee hearing this session.House Bill 608, from Burlington Republican Rep. T.J. Roberts, would go even further. HB 608 would not only ban all nondisclosure agreements in Kentucky in any case involving sexual abuse or grooming, but void all previous such nondisclosure agreements. The measure hasn’t had a committee hearing.Stricter reporting requirementsAlso in HB 253 are a set of rules that Tipton and advocates say would make it harder for alleged abusers to move between schools and districts undetected. The proposed regulations, which have been considered in each legislative session since 2023, would require all allegations against employees involving abuse or sexual misconduct with students to be reported to the district superintendent.Currently, principals have discretion to handle misconduct investigations at the school level. That was a key failing identified in KyCIR’s podcast, Dig, which found that at least one child reported former Newburg Middle School employee Ronnie Stoner for alleged grooming behavior. However, the allegation did not appear in Stoner’s personnel or disciplinary file, suggesting it was never reported to anyone higher up in JCPS than the school principal.Stoner, along with his twin brother, Donnie Stoner, another former JCPS coach and employee, were later charged with 52 felonies related to sexual abuse of students. Both have pleaded not guilty.Under HB 253, once an allegation is reported, district officials would be required to start and complete an investigation, even if the employee resigns. The bill also would require both public and certified private schools to check with each job candidate’s former school district and private school employer to see if they were the subject of any misconduct or abuse investigation. Tipton said these regulations are meant to prevent abusers from resigning before an investigation is complete to escape accountability and take a job at a new school.Like the proposed ban on NDAs, the reporting regulations were lifted from HB 102.Closing the “post-graduation loophole”Some advocates want to prohibit school staff from entering into sexual relationships with former students, closing what they call the “post-graduation loophole.”The measure has support from ICKY co-founder Hayley Weddle, who says a high school teacher and basketball coach groomed her throughout her senior year at Martha Layne Collins High School in Shelby County Public Schools. Two weeks after she graduated, she said the coach, Chris Gaither, coerced her into sex at his home. Gaither denied the allegations. Weddle said she did not consider the sex consensual and that the experience left her traumatized.Senate Bill 196, filed by Shelbyville Republican Sen. Aaron Reed, would prevent school staff from entering into sexual relationships with former students for two years after graduation, unless the employee can prove that they did not groom the former student.The bill also includes definitions for grooming similar to those in HB4. SB 196 has yet to receive a committee hearing. ...read more read less