A teacher in Joliet resigned in December 2023 after an internal investigation found he poked, tickled and made inappropriate comments — both in person and in text messages — toward female high school students about their physical appearances.
The Office of Public Instruction became aware of the situation in May 2025 and received the educator’s surrendered teaching license in August. OPI argues the school should have notified the state sooner and alleges the district’s decision to not immediately notify the department was based on “faulty legal advice.”
Members of Montana’s Board of Public Education expressed concern the district didn’t follow protocol when reporting the resignation and surrendered teacher license.
“It puts our students in danger,” Member Ron Slinger said during the board’s September meeting.
But Joliet School District Lawyer Jeffrey Weldon responded in a letter to OPI on Friday describing the statute that outlines when and how incidents should be reported as “vague.” He also said the teacher’s actions didn’t rise to the definition of “immoral conduct” and criticized how OPI characterized the situation to the state board.
“We are a small education community in Montana,” Weldon wrote. “With all that is happening in our society today, working collaboratively is far more in the best interest of public education than openly disparaging the conduct of a local elected school board or the legal counsel it receives.”
The investigation
An internal investigation report acquired by Lee Enterprises found tenured agricultural education teacher Chad Massar texted students regularly, including during the summer months, asking about their home life and emotional state. The Joliet High School teacher often initiated the text exchanges with students.
The investigation found Massar made inappropriate comments to female students during school hours and physically touched some students in ways that made them uncomfortable.
“Mr. Massar is physical with students: touching, hugging, poking and tickling them,” the report said. “Mr. Massar frequently comments on his students’ outfits, telling the young women they and their outfits look nice, beautiful, cute, etc.”
Lawyer Ann Gilkey, who was the Chief Lawyer for OPI under previous State Superintendent Denise Juneau, interviewed five students in October 2023 as part of the investigation.
In her report, Gilkey said none of those students knew of Massar sexting students or having an “inappropriate physical relationship” with any student. The students interviewed also said Massar’s conduct didn’t disrupt their education or school-related activities.
Gilkey ultimately concluded the allegations didn’t rise to the definition of sexual assault in the school’s policy, but said Massar’s “repeated engagement in inappropriate use of digital communications” violated the principles in the Montana Professional Educator’s Code of Ethics, the district’s teacher handbook and district’s policy on personal conduct.
Still, alleged incidents involving Massar ran the gamut. Examples in the report included:
Hugging a student and whispering in her ear she looked “gorgeous.”
Tickling and touching girls’ hair and ears, sitting on students’ laps and caressing a student while moving her hair from her face
When a student returned from class after being sick, Massar said “something about taking temperatures orally or rectally, but he guessed they’d have to ‘do it rectally.'”
When a student said she might not participate in a parliamentary procedure event the next year, he responded: “What? That’s the most fun you can have with your clothes on.”
One student reported being too uncomfortable to take Massar’s class
When interviewed as part of the investigation, Massar didn’t deny sending texts about topics unrelated to school, nor did he deny physical encounters with students, including touching, hugging and sitting on their laps, the report states. Massar said “his actions and texts are all about caring for his students and that isolating texts or specific conduct takes the comments and his motives out of context.”
Since no formal complaint was filed against Massar before the texts surfaced, no investigation was triggered before this one, Gilkey said.
Then-newly appointed Joliet Superintendent Clark Begger talked to Massar about the inappropriate nature of some of his comments. But according to the report, Begger didn’t take disciplinary action.
The Missoulian reached Massar by phone on Thursday, Oct. 2, but he declined to comment on the allegations and told the reporter to speak with his attorney, Steven Thuesen. As of Wednesday evening, efforts to reach Thuesen by email and phone have been unsuccessful.
Questions surround Massar’s resignation
The Office of Public Instruction’s timeline of events is sourced from its notice of surrender for Massar’s teachers license, which was sent to the Board of Public Education from OPI Lawyer Brenton Craggs in August 2025.
Prominent events in the timeline include:
Oct. 6, 2023: Students showed a math teacher Massar’s text exchanges with students on Oct. 6, 2023
The math teacher reported the texts to the high school principal and Massar was placed on leave that same day
Nov. 3, 2023: Gilkey conducted her investigation and submitted her conclusion to the Joliet district lawyer, Weldon.
Dec. 2023: Massar resigned, with Craggs from OPI writing in his timeline Massar “resigned in lieu of termination.”
Feb. 20, 2024: The Joliet Board of Trustees unanimously accepted Massar’s resignation during their February 2024 meeting without discussion, as outlined in meeting minutes. Craggs said the resignation didn’t “appear to be mentioned in the minutes of JSD’s board meetings.”
The Joliet School District didn’t inform OPI of Massar’s surrender of his teacher’s license, which Craggs said is required by Montana law.
May 7, 2025: OPI found out about Massar’s resignation from a local community member.
May 21, 2025: OPI sent Massar a letter “offering the surrender” of his license and affidavit of surrender.
Aug. 5, 2025: OPI received Massar’s affidavit surrendering his teaching license signed and notarized.
The agency still hadn’t received the official notice from the district of Massar’s resignation as of Aug. 5, the date Cragg’s letter was sent.
Weldon said in his letter issued to OPI last week that the statute describing the process for districts to report teacher resignations involving misconduct the department cited is flawed. He also said the nature of Massar’s resignation was mischaracterized.
Weldon also said the board did not review the allegations brought against Massar, and emphasized that it’s unclear whether the teacher’s actions amounted to reportable conduct.
A local school board is required to report resignations to prevent termination if trustees believe the teacher was convicted of a “criminal offense involving moral turpitude” or “immoral conduct related to the teaching profession.”
Weldon’s letter also raised concerns around the definition of “immoral conduct” for teachers, describing the language used in state law as the “vague and open-ended,” therefore providing school districts with “no guidance as to what should or should not be reported.”
“While inappropriate, the conduct at issue here was not the type of conduct listed in the administrative rule, making it impossible for any school district to know the bounds of what ‘but not limited to’ may mean to any current Superintendent of Public Instruction or Board of Public Education” the letter states.
The letter was addressed to OPI. Department spokesperson McKenna Gregg said Monday OPI is reviewing the letter.
BPE Chairman Tim Tharp said the law has been in place for a long time now “without issue.”
“I don’t see any reason that we would want to engage in rule-making or lobbying the legislature to change their laws,” Tharp said.
BPE reaction
During the Board of Public Education’s September meeting, Craggs outlined OPI’s timeline of events in Massar’s licensure surrender case. Tharp reacted with concern the Joliet School District may not have followed protocol.
“I don’t know if it’s an oversight, lack of training, lack of understanding, or just a blatant violation of the law,” Tharp said.
Craggs said the district received legal advice he deemed “ill-advised,” as Weldon’s interpretation essentially means the incidents didn’t rise to the occasion of needing to report the case to OPI.
Board member Hannah Nieskens said new superintendents may not be as aware of the law or may not have been in situations like this in the past. She also said legal advice is a resource superintendents rely on in these situations.
Nieskens added she would like to see OPI provide messaging on what a district should have done in that situation.
Weldon described Cragg’s presentation to the board as “hyperbole” and said in his letter he would have appreciated OPI giving notice to the district the board would be discussing the case.
“One would hope that your Office would contact the local district, if not its legal counsel, to give notice that such a report would be publicly discussed with the Board of Public Education,” Weldon said. “The opportunity to explain what actually occurred would have been appreciated.”
Nicole Girten is the education reporter for the Ravalli Republic and the Missoulian.
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Nicole Girten
Education reporter for the Ravalli Republic & Missoulian
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