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Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of sexual assault.
Throughout high school, Amanda Watzka and David Heisel would go on long drives across Oconto County.
Heisel would stroke Watzka’s hand and talk about his family’s wealth. He would let her know he could protect her once they were finally together.
But Watzka and Heisel were not teenage sweethearts — Watzka was a 15-year-old technical education student at Oconto Falls High School, and Heisel was her teacher.
Watzka considered Heisel a mentor, a friend and, in some ways, her boyfriend.
But now that she’s in her 30s and has a daughter of her own, Watzka believes she was groomed by Heisel for years.
When Watzka talks about how the relationship went from grooming to an alleged sexual assault her junior year of high school, her reaction is physical.
According to a federal complaint and police reports, in 2012 Heisel sexually assaulted Watzka during a Skills USA competition at Chula Visa Resort in Wisconsin Dells.
“It’s hard to talk about. It’s hard,” Watzka says, rocking back and forth and patting her left arm. “I don’t know that I’ve fully processed that yet. I know what has happened. It is that he did not stop.”
In March 2026, Watzka and two other former students filed a federal complaint against the Oconto Falls School District alleging school officials ignored ongoing grooming and sexual abuse.
The complaint has since grown to include more than a dozen former students, teachers and parents connected to the Oconto Falls School District who allege that for 35 years educators and school board members were aware of sexual misconduct in all forms — whether perpetrated by teachers against students, by students against other students, or by staff against staff — but practiced “deliberate indifference.”
WPR reached out to several attorneys, school officials and members of law enforcement related to the case. But with the exception of the attorney representing the plaintiffs, none would comment.
The complaint is one of the largest cases dealing with student sexual assault in Wisconsin, said Chicago attorney Cass Casper, who is representing the former students.
Since the filing in March, the complaint has been amended three times. It now includes seven plaintiffs and 19 sworn affidavits to support their allegations.
The complaint names 12 staff members as alleged perpetrators going back to the early 1990s. So far, two have been criminally charged.
According to the complaint:
“I’ve never seen facts like this, ever, in my practice,” Casper said. “There are all of these people, staff members, students reporting it. The scope of this suit, and the number of witnesses who have come forward, reflects a severe problem in how the district responds to these situations.”
West Bend attorney Ron Stadler is representing the school district. Stadler did not return requests from WPR for comment.
“Teachers who engage in sexual misconduct should face consequences — the loss of their employment, criminal prosecution and civil liability for the damages they cause,” Sadler’s motion to dismiss says. “In the context of sexual misconduct, a school district is not liable for the bad actor’s conduct.”
Under state law, all school employees are mandated reporters who are legally required to report suspected child abuse or neglect, including sexual abuse.
According to state guidelines, school staff must “learn to recognize manipulation and grooming by adults and peers and to communicate those concerns to appropriate authorities such as school leadership per school policies. In plain language, grooming is a process where a maltreater gains trust, builds rapport and compliance, and ensures secrecy of a child with the intent to be sexually abusive.”
School staff and other mandated reporters who knowingly fail to report abuse can face criminal charges and the loss of professional licenses.
Watzka graduated from Oconto Falls High School in January 2013. But she returned in May 2013 to walk with her class and receive her diploma.
Watzka said she left school early to get away from Heisel, who was in his mid-30s at the time.
Her teacher and alleged sexual abuser was many things to Watzka, who excelled in his class.
Throughout high school, Heisel invited Watzka on weekly drives to his job sites, restaurants, his house and his grandmother’s house.
During these trips, Heisel discussed what life would be like with Watzka, who was a teenager. He asked her about her sexual experience, while discussing his marriage and complaining his wife had cheated on him, according to the federal complaint.
Heisel told Watzka he could marry her and take care of all her problems. He sang to her and made romantic comments. He also engraved his initials after Watzka’s name on her tools.
Then in spring 2012, when Heisel took students to the Dells for the annual Skills Competition, he allegedly escalated his behavior.
According to the complaint, Heisel went into Watzka’s hotel room. She felt threatened and went into the hallway. He followed her into the hotel stairway, where he allegedly accused her of being a tease, partially undressed and forcibly kissed and fondled her.
“Amanda always remembered the facts of what occurred between her and Heisel,” the complaint says. “However, due to her youth, Heisel’s manipulation, and the grooming process, she did not understand until March and April 2025 that Heisel’s conduct was predatory, criminal, and constituted actionable civil wrongs.”
Watzka said she continued to confide in Heisel even after the assault because she felt like he had always been there for her.
Child sexual grooming is a complex and deceptive process that masquerades as trust-building or mentorship, according to the National Children’s Alliance. It is estimated that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 13 boys have experienced child sexual abuse.
“The way I look at it is I’ve lived a very hard life,” Watzka said. “From what I’ve experienced and what I’ve reflected on, I don’t think that victims can come forward until they’re safe enough to do so.”
That safety came last year, once Watzka was married to her second husband and had three children.
In March 2025, Watzka, now 31, sent Heisel a text that was different from any type of contact they had previously had.
“I didn’t realize how incredibly messed up it was until I had my own daughter,” Watzka wrote. “Now that I’ve accepted it for what it is, I’m ready to share it openly so that I can move forward with my life and in hopes to prevent you from doing it to anyone else.”
According to a police report filed in April 2025, Heisel showed his co-workers at Oconto Falls High School the text messages and asked them what he should do.
They told him to get a lawyer.
Heisel did not respond to phone calls and text messages from Wisconsin Public Radio. His attorney, Clarence Duchac III, did not return multiple requests for comment from WPR.
Heisel has never been criminally charged.
The Oconto Falls district did not respond to requests for information on the status of Heisel’s employment.
However, Heisel surrendered his teacher’s license to the Department of Public Instruction on March 31, 20 days after being named in the civil rights complaint against the Oconto Falls School Board.
While Heisel has never faced criminal charges for Watzka’s allegations, two other educators in Oconto Falls have been charged with sexually assaulting multiple students.
Brooke LaCount and Grace Williams, who are now adults, say they were both groomed and sexually assaulted by Brynn Larsen, a former substitute teacher and volleyball coach.
According to court documents, LaCount was 15 when Brynn Larsen began a sexual relationship with her in 2013. Larsen, who was approximately 24 at the time, started sending LaCount pornographic photographs and then escalated the relationship to sleepovers at her house.
“I did not know what sex between women was and was not interested in sexual activity with women, but I felt obligated to comply because of the power differential between me and Brynn Marie Larsen and because of my youth and inexperience,” LaCount said in court documents.
Brynn’s mother, Dawn Larsen, was a health education teacher at Oconto Falls High School and the head varsity coach for volleyball and softball.
Allegations that Larsen was having an inappropriate relationship with a student were first reported to police in 2014.
In June of that year, Oconto Falls police officer Jamie Kuhn, who also served as a school resource officer, spoke to LaCount after someone reported Larsen appeared to be having inappropriate contact with the girl.
According to the federal complaint, the officer questioned her about her relationship with Larsen and told the 15-year-old LaCount she needed to decide whether she would cooperate or they “needed to put her in handcuffs.”
“I was 15 years old. I was terrified,” LaCount said, saying she lied to police to shield Larsen because she was afraid.
Despite police investigating Larsen for child sexual assault in 2014, she continued to be employed at the district.
Grace Williams alleges she was abused by Brynn Larsen four years later.
“An outcome made possible entirely by the Board’s failure to discipline, flag, or report Larsen after she victimized Brooke,” according to the complaint.
As an adult LaCount realized while in therapy the predatory nature of her relationship with Larsen. She went back to the police in 2019.
In 2021, Larsen pleaded no contest to third-degree sexual assault of a student for the assault of LaCount and was sentenced to two years in prison.
Kuhn and Oconto Falls Police Chief Brad Olsen referred all questions to attorney Craig Kubiak, who responded, “The city of Oconto Falls has no comment.”
Another former Oconto Falls teacher, Gayle Gander, was charged with 11 felonies in January including sexual misconduct and child enticement.
Plaintiff Jesse Kasal said he was groomed and sexually abused by Gander beginning in the second semester of his junior year and continuing through his senior year.
Kasal said Gander would remove him from study hall on manufactured pretexts, isolate him in private, lockable spaces within the school, and subject him to escalating sexual misconduct.
Gander is currently out on bond awaiting trial.
Nine other Oconto Falls School District staff members named in the complaint have not been charged, including a physical education teacher who at least four people accuse of sexual misconduct in the civil suit.
Oconto Falls is about 35 miles north of Green Bay. The city’s 3,000 residents live in an area that’s just under 3 square miles.
The school district serves about 1,600 students from the city and nine surrounding towns with one high school, one middle school and two elementary schools.
The district’s office is located across the street from a church, overlooking the high school football field.
Brianne Carriveau moved to Oconto Falls in 2020 and now runs the Facebook group “Parents of Oconto Falls Schools.”
She said her daughter, a sophomore in the district, has been harassed and inappropriately touched by teachers since middle school. But she said complaints have never been taken seriously by school administrators.
“They silenced the kids. They silence teachers. They basically made it almost impossible for anybody to come forward,” Carriveau said.
Carriveau joined the complaint on behalf of her daughter.
“Part of the issue of why this has been going on for so long is the community itself,” Carriveau said. “It’s all interconnected. The police are connected to the school district. And you’ve got wives and spouses and grandchildren and generations all working together. How are we supposed to fight?”
On May 11, the Oconto Falls Board of Education filed a motion to dismiss the suit “not to argue that sexual misconduct is acceptable or ever tolerated,” the motion states. “But because as a matter of law it cannot be financially liable for the acts of reprehensible teachers.”
During an interview in March with WPR, Oconto Falls Superintendent Stuart Russ said the plaintiffs had been making “substantial monetary demands” on the school district since August 2025.
Russ referred all questions for this story to the school district’s attorney, who has not responded to requests for comment.
According to a 2024 report from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, sexual misconduct in schools is a prevalent problem that is often ignored.
Researchers found 10% to 17% of students experience some form of educator sexual misconduct, but only 6% of those students officially report the abuse to authorities.
In Wisconsin, lawmakers are trying to address the issue.
In March, Gov. Tony Evers signed two Republican-sponsored bills related to grooming.
The first establishes a criminal definition of child grooming and imposes strict felony penalties on predators who target minors.
The second requires all schools in Wisconsin to establish clear policies and training governing appropriate communication between staff and students.
Over the last several decades, there have been teachers and other adults in Oconto Falls who have tried to call attention to alleged sexual abuse and bullying behavior in the school district.
Tanya Jersey was a special education teacher at the district’s Washington Middle School from 2004 until she resigned in 2015.
Jersey said a male teacher bullied and sexually harassed female teachers, but after she reported him to administrators and the school board, he was promoted.
“What I experienced was people being treated unprofessionally, at the very least. And those who had the power and had the authority and responsibility to do something about it, didn’t,” Jersey said. “Not only did they not do something about it, they defended the ones doing the damage.”
But Jersey’s experience goes beyond what happened at work.
She grew up in Oconto Falls.
Now, 10 years after leaving the school district and moving away from the city, Jersey is seeing her own high school experience differently.
“When I was in high school, the two basketball coaches were sleeping with two players that were my friends,” Jersey says. “That was tough to go back to. I had put that away. I had compartmentalized that.”
Those two friends, and the coaches, are named in the civil complaint.
Now, like Amanda Watzka, Jersey is a mom. And she can see more clearly what happened.
“I mean we were kids — we were riding our bikes,” Jersey said. “That’s what really puts it in perspective for me. It’s just such a representation of when you’re that young and unassuming and inexperienced. For an adult male to take advantage of that is one of the cruelest things that could ever be done.”
Watzka says people knew Heisel had an inappropriate relationship with her, but said she believes it’s hard for teachers and administrators to speak up because it jeopardizes their own careers.
“If you’re going to blow the whistle on this, you’re going to lose quite a bit of teachers, and you’re also going to draw a lot of negative attention to the school district,” Watzka said. “That’s impossible, right?”
Watzka filed a report with the Oconto Falls Police Department in April 2025, alleging that Heisel began grooming her when she was a sophomore.
She told police he assaulted her in Wisconsin Dells.
At the time she filed the report, Heisel, 46, was at a Skills USA competition in Madison with his current Tech Ed class.
Oconto Falls Police went to the competition and removed Heisel from the event, according to police reports.
Heisel was questioned and retained Duchac as an attorney but was not charged.
According to Oconto Falls police, Adams County has jurisdiction.
Adams County has declined to prosecute the case, citing a statute of limitations; however, Wisconsin law for sexual assault of a student by a school staff member gives victims until the age of 45 to file charges.
During a recent meeting in Oconto Falls, Watzka was wearing a black sweatshirt with an Oconto Falls High School Construction Crew logo. On her left arm, her maiden name is sewn on the sleeve.
She says she only started wearing the sweatshirt again since she came forward with her story about her relationship with Heisel.
“I love houses, I love design, I love remodeling and I love drafting,” Watzka said. “Why should one individual who used me and abused me take away what I really do love?”
If you or someone you know is experiencing sexual assault, you can dial 1-800-656-HOPE or text HOPE to 64673. Resources are also available online.
This story was originally published by WPR.
Accusers in Oconto Falls case say school had ‘deliberate indifference’ to abuse for decades is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
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