See evil, hear evil, speak no evil The silence is devastating when educators, their union and others turn a blind eye to preserve predators’ careers rather than protect children from life-altering abuse, victim says By: Jeff Hamilton Posted: 7:51 PM CST Friday, Jan. 9, 2026

Max Jenson wasn’t shocked when he read about a former teacher who groomed, isolated and obsessed over an elementary school student for years.

Instead, a sickening jolt of recognition rushed through his body.

“Nothing in that article surprised me — none of it,” Jenson said of a recent Free Press investigation into the conduct of former Sherwood School teacher David Wray, whose obsession began when the girl was in Grade 3.

“Not even the secrecy of the school division. It’s always the same story.”

Jenson, 35, is a survivor of sexual abuse who waived his publication ban in December 2024 to expose a Manitoba education system that failed him. His abuser was Kelsey McKay, a high school football coach who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexually assaulting nine students, including Jenson. While Wray and McKay operated in different decades and with students of different ages, Jenson said they worked from the same playbook.

In the Wray case, the teacher isolated the girl in the classroom during recess, positioned the student’s desk next to his, repeatedly texted her at night from grades 4 through 6, and immersed himself in the family’s life as a friend and tutor. With Jenson, McKay used Slurpee runs, lunches off school grounds, and late-night messages to dissolve teacher-student boundaries.

“Reading another article about a teacher abusing a student and not being held accountable by the bodies aimed at protecting children, I knew I had to come out publicly (this week),” Jenson said.

“It’s been talked about for a long time but (the Free Press) story actually shows you how deeply rooted this problem is, and I don’t think the government has the full picture. We can’t just continue to cover this stuff up.”

Late Friday, Education Minister Tracy Schmidt acknowledged the stress the family endured as a result of Wray’s actions.

“My thoughts are with the victim and her family,” she said in a statement. “No one should have to experience this type of trauma in their lives, let alone a child. Schools are and should be a safe place for every student.”

While Schmidt said she can’t comment on individual cases, she admits there were gaps in the old teacher oversight system.

“If a situation like the one reported were to occur today, parents would now have access to a public complaint process, in addition to reporting to police and school officials,” she said in the statement. “Employers are now legally required to report instances of misconduct, including when a teacher or clinician resigns in circumstances where reporting is in the public interest.”

For Jenson, the silence of other adults in both his and the Wray case is the most disturbing.

In the Wray investigation, there were multiple red flags in the Sherwood School setting, and several of McKay’s colleagues knew about hot tub parties and the coach’s “unusually close relationship” with players.

“We’re waiting for the abuse to take place, rather than recognizing clear red flags and saying, ‘Hey, this is inappropriate behaviour and should be further looked at,’” Jenson said.

That’s because the school system is reactive and is designed to manage liability rather than prevent harm, said Jenson, who has met with Schmidt and senior education officials to share his personal experience and to expose flaws in the system.

“I can guarantee you that schools don’t recognize the harm they do to kids,” he said.

In the wake of the Free Press investigation, the Manitoba Teachers’ Society sent an internal letter to members this week.

“We know this coverage has been upsetting for many educators, and we want to speak directly to your about our role, our responsibilities, and our unwavering commitment to the safety of students,” the statement said.

It stressed student safety is the union’s top priority but it also has a legal obligation to ensure fairness and due process for every member.

“Due process does not exist to shield anyone from consequences for wrongdoing. It exists to ensure decisions are fair, evidence-based, and lawful – protecting both students and educators,” the statement said.

Jenson, however, said the boundaries between the union and education officials were too often blurred in the past.

He pointed out that union representatives were often in the room when “quiet resignations” were negotiated — deals that removed an educator from a specific school and division but left their teaching certificate intact for years. That was the case with Wray, who had to be asked to give up his certificate in 2023, more than five years after he was removed from the classroom.

In an e-mail to the Free Press, Wray recalled being represented by current MTS executive director Arlyn Filewich, who used to lead the teacher welfare department before getting the union’s top job in June.

Wray said the status of his teaching certificate was never brought up while the division was investigating his case. He also said that he told his MTS representative that he suffered from a condition called limerence, which made him obsessed with the child.

“Why wasn’t there one person who stood up and said maybe it would be a good idea to cancel his teaching certificate?” Jenson said of the lack of action to permanently remove Wray from the profession.

“Where is the leadership in a room full of adults who are supposed to have our kids’ safety as their top priority?”

In her statement, Schmidt said that under the old discipline framework, teachers who found themselves in trouble would be prevented from being in the classroom either by having their certificate temporarily suspended — automatically triggering a hearing with the Certificate Review Committee — or were offered a voluntary surrender.

“Due process does not exist to shield anyone from consequences for wrongdoing. It exists to ensure decisions are fair, evidence-based, and lawful.”

A CRC hearing is the government’s standardized mechanism to review teacher complaints — conducted by a panel of school-based stakeholders, including MTS, who then recommended a penalty — with the final disciplinary action falling on the education minister.

A voluntary surrender, which was facilitated by MTS and awarded by the government, was a better outcome for a teacher, as it would keep their certificate in “good standing” and prevent their name from appearing on the disciplinary outcome list that is part of the province’s new teacher registry.

That is no longer the case, Schmidt said in the statement.

“Beginning Dec. 12, 2025, the Department has also enacted the Teacher Registry Regulation, which requires the publication of information of voluntary surrenders of their teaching certificates.”

That change has already begun to show up on the registry. Amanda Sherrett’s “good standing” certificate now identifies that she was offered a voluntary surrender. Sherrett, whose charges for sexual assault, sexual exploitation and luring a person under 18 by means of telecommunication were stayed in August 2024, is still waiting for a CRC hearing.

In McKay’s case, the Progressive Conservative government offered him the opportunity to voluntarily surrender his certificate, and he accepted.

“Where is the leadership in a room full of adults who are supposed to have our kids’ safety as their top priority?”

The NDP, however, in an effort to clean up the process after forming government, cancelled it in June 2024. Had that not happened, his certificate would have been in “good standing” when the public was able to access the registry six months later.

The River East Transcona School Division sent a letter to parents earlier this week that stressed student safety is its “highest priority” and cited several codes of conduct policies, including one for child protection, as examples. Sherwood School is in the division.

Jenson said policies are meaningless without enforcement. He noted that in his case, McKay was ordered to retake the Respect in Sport course following the discovery of his inappropriate texting, but the abuse continued unchecked for several more years.

McKay was arrested in 2022 and sentenced to prison in October 2024.

“When it comes to the grooming process, the policies put in place to prevent it from happening aren’t even being enforced,” Jenson said. “When they’re overlooked, it helps normalize this behaviour.”

Meanwhile, the systemic dysfunction that Jenson described spilled into public view Tuesday when Rod Giesbrecht, a long-serving trustee in the division, announced his resignation on social media.

Giesbrecht claimed he was “kept ignorant” of the Wray situation by board leadership and apologized to the victim.

The school board issued a statement two days later saying Giesbrecht was being “untruthful,” that he was aware of the case and highlighted his three suspensions from the board in the past three years.

For Jenson, the public spat illustrates a system that is more focused on protecting its own image rather than students.

He said he believes the current attempts at reform, notably the province’s now one-year-old online teacher registry, are insufficient because they ignore the damages from the past.

“The school system was compared to the Catholic Church and it is…” he said. “It’s why MTS didn’t want this registry in the first place, calling it open season on teachers.”

He is calling for a full provincial inquiry to “clean house” and for past files to be reopened to determine how many other teachers were allowed to quietly resign while keeping their certificates in good standing.

Without an inquiry, the cycle will simply repeat.

“We don’t need to know that a teacher got fired because they were constantly late for school,” he said. “But the rest, things that involve kids, that should be public knowledge.”

And he is also concerned about the way the case was handled by the police, who closed the file, in part, because the young girl couldn’t recall instances of sexual touching.

“It took me four hours to tell my story,” Jenson said, his voice cracking with emotion. “They’re expecting an 11-year-old to give a full-on disclosure, accurate with all the details, in a way an adult would tell it?”

He offered a direct message to the young woman who was the child at the heart of the Wray investigation.

“Her trauma is real and the system’s failure to validate it is not her fault,” Jenson said. “You automatically feel you’re the problem, that you’re the issue. To go through speaking out to people, only to get brushed off… that validates all the negative things that are going on in your head.”

He admitted his own experience has left him in an impossible position as a father. He knows he must send his children to school, both of whom are in the River East Transcona division, and must trust the adults there to keep them safe.

But he also knows that trust can be weaponized.

“I’m the last person who should be trusting you, and I’m telling my kids every single day that they need to trust their teachers,” he said.

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