Chicago teacher fights to clear name after judge dismisses student’s charges
CHICAGO — A quick Google search reveals a lot about Chicago’s Matthew Baron.
He has not one, but two rock bands. One of them is called “Future Hits” and contains educational songs for children. The other is an indie/alternative band called Young Man in a Hurry.
Baron’s life was limited by two creative passions: music and education. He teaches English as a second language and has taught social and emotional learning for several years.
“It’s a job where I’m working with children and adults and parents and families and the community and just being engaged all the time,” Barron said.
Another Google hit linked to his work as a teacher at Skinner West Elementary School in Chicago’s West Loop and the grim and disturbing headline in May 2019: “CPS Teacher Arrested, Accused of Inappropriate Physical Contact in Classroom.”
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“[A child] stated that I placed my hand on this student’s bare back in the classroom for approximately nine minutes and gave the individual a bare back massage,” Baron said.
The allegation came from a sixth-grade boy who said it happened when Baron was showing the film so students could watch it in a darkened classroom.
Baron learned of the allegations while in New York on a music tour. He received a call from his principal, who expressed doubt about the accusation but said he had been suspended pending an investigation. The Skinner families were also notified in a letter.
“It was shocking,” Baron said. “But at the same time, I wasn’t worried to any degree because I thought, ‘This will all shake out soon.’ This has never happened. Once whoever is supposed to look at it looks, it will become obvious and we will all get on with our lives.” But that didn’t happen.”
What happened was an arrest, fingerprinting and a photograph. And then there was the news. The student’s mother posted about the allegations on Facebook and named Baron before he was charged with the crime. Some called him a pedophile who looked after children. The mother began to ask the others to come out. All this happened at a time when CPS was criticized in a Chicago Tribune series for losers when it came to protecting children from predators.
And Baron really knew his way around optics.
“I always believed the accusers,” he said. “Always. Especially children. Why would they say it if it didn’t happen?”
It didn’t take the baron long to figure out how and where the story started. He believes that it was revenge for the disciplinary punishment of another unruly student who was disrupting classes. After school that day, he noticed them huddled together.
“It was obvious to me from the beginning because I knew they were very good friends,” he said. “And I don’t want to put anyone down, but given my experience with the particular student I got into an altercation with, I wouldn’t put it past that person to try to develop some sort of retaliatory scheme against me.”
The indictment soon followed. Even though he was building an understanding, it was still hard to understand.
“I remember being on the phone with Whitney, my then-fiancé, now wife, who was in Norway, just sobbing in the parking lot of Blick Art Supply,” Barron said. “I was buying notebooks and thinking, ‘How could this happen? How the hell could this happen?!”
Shame and embarrassment mounted as he figured out how to deal with the charge and perception.
“It feels like simple guilt as charged,” Baron said. “The accusation itself is like an eternal stain, a scarlet letter. I don’t know if it will really go away. It was in the news. He was smeared on Facebook by the father of the accused child. Other people jumped on it.”
But there was also support from the Skinner community. Many could hardly believe this story. Teacher Jeff Merkin spoke with a sense of wonder and doubt.
“Initially, there were a lot of people talking,” Merkin said. “I felt hurt that his name was known right before the facts were known. The teachers got together very quickly, we knew him well (and knew) that this is not true.”
Several investigations were conducted with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, the Chicago Board of Education and Chicago Public Schools. The Cook County State’s Attorney declined to file felony charges.
“Several kids corroborated the story, but their stories didn’t match what he was saying,” Baron said.
The battery was charging. Inconsistencies were revealed at the trial. The testimony of the two students differed as to the date. One testified that the contact was on the student’s back. The other said it was his leg. The length of the exchange also caused controversy. One said the massage lasted nine minutes, the other less than a minute.
And there was also the matter with the light, which could not be turned off due to electrical installation work at the school.
“You couldn’t turn them off. You can’t black them out,” Baron said, adding that there were 30 other kids in the room.
“I think the truth has come out in a very obvious way. They are [sheriff’s deputies in the courtroom] came to my attorneys and said this is unbelievable, this testimony is patently false and we can’t believe we’re all here today,” Barron said.
After cross-examination during the trial, Baron was finally released.
“It was a climactic moment,” Baron said. “My legs were shaking, and the moment the judge started reading the verdicts — about 5-10 seconds later — my whole body relaxed. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “I find you innocent.” I felt like I was floating.”
Until then, DCFS. and the Board of Education has already dismissed the appeal. In February, CPS allowed Baron to return to the classroom.
“As soon as I went to work, I – it’s surreal, I felt like I was watching a movie,” Barron said. “This does not happen. People who were falsely accused have gone through the courts, they don’t go back to where they came from. It was very important to go back, even for a day. Even for one day, that was my goal.”
There was joy and relief in Skinner that day.
“In one classroom I walked into, they started chanting ‘not guilty’ and started hugging each other like they won the Super Bowl,” Barron said. “I included music in all classes. And so I’m back at it, teaching ESL, Social and Emotional Learning with my original songs that I write and my slideshows. It was amazing.”
That one day turned into six weeks. Amidst all the joy, the Baron still felt a tremor. This crystallized from the voice of one student, who threw the phrase “perverter of children” into the audience.
“I felt terrible, especially because I remembered this kid when he was a first grader and now he was an eighth grader filming this,” he said.
Where does that path lead? Baron temporarily retired from teaching. He and his wife had a young son, and he was on extended paternity leave as he considered his next move.
“To be falsely accused of a student as an adult is inherently shameful, the guilt of the accusation,” Baron said. “And for me to be freed from the shame of even being accused, not even of anything I’ve done, just being accused… to shut it up and put it behind me, sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened it was, I believe it would eat me. And it’s very scary to tell.”
Baron’s other creative outlet, his music, will continue to tell his story, which serves him best by currently covering it.
“I was talking to someone on the phone and he said to me, ‘Matt, if you put this story behind you, it’s going to be a shadow.’ But if you show it in front of you, it can be a light that will shape your life going forward,” he said.
The City of Chicago settled the case with Baron. It’s unclear what relevance that had to the case, but in his resulting lawsuit, Barron alleged that the investigating detective and the boy’s mother had developed a romantic relationship, which the detective admitted to in court. WGN News spoke with her by phone, but she declined an interview, she said, out of concern for her son.
https://wgntv.com/news/wgn-investigates/chicago-teacher-fights-to-clear-his-name-after-judge-dismisses-allegation-from-a-student/