A north Minneapolis charter school agreed to settle a lawsuit for $150,000 with a former student who claimed the school failed to properly vet a teacher who sexually abused children.
The lawsuit was filed against Harvest Best Academy in 2020, after multiple children reported that the teacher, Aaron Hjermstad, had sexually abused them. Hjermstad has since been criminally convicted of sexually abusing 16 minors, including the one who filed the lawsuit.
Hjermstad was hired as a physical education teacher at the Mastery School, now consolidated with Harvest Best Academy, in 2016. He started teaching at the school after his contract at Excell Academy, a charter school in Brooklyn Park, was not renewed after a different student reported Hjermstad for sexual abuse. The former student who filed the lawsuit played basketball for a school team that Hjermstad coached.
The parties presented their agreement to Hennepin County District Court Judge Jamie Anderson in a hearing Wednesday afternoon. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, a third of the money will go toward attorneys’ fees and the remaining $100,000 will go into a special needs trust for the former student, who is a vulnerable adult with disabilities.
Molly Burke, an attorney representing the former student, said her client and his family fought hard during the case, which took more than five years to resolve.
“They’re happy that the case is resolved and that there’s resolution for this family and this survivor,” Burke said. “They’re moving forward.”
Harvest Best’s board of directors approved the settlement agreement on Oct. 7 after discussing it during a closed session.
In a statement, Harvest Best said that it relied on a “state-run system” for screening people who interact with students, which did not provide any disqualifying information on Hjermstad’s ability to work with children.
“We continue to be saddened and shocked by Hjermstad’s actions and the harm he caused to so many students, children and their families. This entire matter has been a challenge for the entire school community,” Harvest Best said in a statement. “We continue to work hard to make sure our learning environment remains safe, supportive, and conducive to the success of all our students and staff members.”
READ ABOUT HOW AARON HJERMSTAD SLIPPED THROUGH THE CRACKS
The lawsuit worked its way up to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which ruled in February that the school could be held liable for negligent hiring. Harvest Best Academy had argued that public school hiring decisions were a governmental policy function and therefore protected from lawsuits. But the court said schools could sometimes be held liable for hiring decisions. The case was sent back to district court to decide whether the school was negligent in this instance.
“That’s a real success to this long, hard fight,” Burke said of the Minnesota Supreme Court ruling, which allows other survivors to bring forward claims against public schools.
In March, on the basis of that Supreme Court decision, a different student filed a lawsuit against Harvest Best Academy and Abdul Wright, a former teacher at the school who was also a Minnesota Teacher of the Year in 2016. The lawsuit alleges that the school’s leader, Eric Mahmoud, failed to take action after the student’s father complained about inappropriate contact between Wright and his daughter. The student later reported that Wright sexually assaulted her, and Wright was found guilty of that crime last month.
Shortly after the lawsuit against Harvest Best and Wright was filed, Mahmoud was ousted from the school by its board of directors.
Hjermstad taught at Excell Academy in Brooklyn Park until 2015, when a student reported Hjermstad had sexually abused him. Excell Academy placed Hjermstad on administrative leave and did not renew his contract for the following school year. Police investigated, but the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office did not file charges.
A year later, Hjermstad was hired at the Mastery School in north Minneapolis as a physical education teacher. According to court documents, when Hjermstad interviewed for the position at Mastery, the school did not call Excell Academy. Mastery also did not call any of Hjermstad’s references.
During his four years teaching and coaching basketball at the Mastery School, Hjermstad abused more children. When another boy came forward in 2020, charges were filed, and the 2015 case was charged as well. Hjermstad was convicted in 2021 of abusing four boys, and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Last month, he pleaded guilty to abusing 12 more children, and is set to be sentenced in that case next month. As part of his plea agreement, Hjermstad agreed to a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole after serving 30 years.
A Sahan Journal investigation found that loopholes in Minnesota law as well as challenges in the criminal justice system led to no criminal charges or adverse action on his teaching license in the 2015 case, which allowed Hjermstad to continue teaching.
