Colorado school officials could face charges after falsely claiming student was homeless so she could live with teacher

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office in Colorado has launched a criminal investigation at Columbine High School. It comes after a CBS Colorado investigation found school officials falsely claimed a student was homeless so she could move in with a teacher.

But that may not have been the only motivation. Jefferson County receives hundreds of thousands of dollars for students who are homeless. The district insists the decision had nothing to do with money but, the more homeless students a school district has, the more funding its eligible for.

The girl's mother believes the district used her daughter for financial gain. We aren't identifying the mom to protect the privacy of her other kids.

"This is not a story, this is a nightmare," the mom told CBS Colorado's Shaun Boyd.

Three years ago, she learned Columbine High School teachers, counselors and even the principal had come up with a plan to help her daughter run away from home.

"This was deliberate, it was calculated, it was intentional."

It may also be criminal. School district employees filled out a federal form claiming the girl was homeless when they knew she wasn't, even discussing in emails how to conceal it from her parents by not using their contact information.

The mom says she found out when she was cleaning her daughter's room.

"If I would not have found this paperwork underneath her bed, I would have had no idea that this was happening behind our back."

Jeffco Public Schools claims the form is "not a declaration of homelessness" and "generates no revenue through any sources for Jeffco Public Schools." But the form itself asks whether a student is "an unaccompanied homeless youth" or "unaccompanied, self-supporting youth at risk of homelessness."

While the student's form was signed in April 2022, it was dated July of 2021 -- the start of the Jeffco's fiscal year. The district says the form is pre-typed each school year. According to the Colorado Department of Education, Jeffco Public Schools has received at least $405,000 for homeless students since 2022.

The mom believes Jeffco schools made money at the expense of her daughter's safety.

"It's sickening," she said.

 An investigator hired by the district found Columbine teacher Leann Kearney was "grooming" the minor and had asked a colleague about "the process for declaring a student homeless" as early as 2019. The mom says she texted Kearney not to contact her daughter after discovering thousands of texts and phone calls between them.

When she alerted the principal at Columbine, she says he told her that Kearney "helps kids navigate their sexuality."

The mom was incredulous.

"So you've just been given information that of some sort, there's some type of inappropriate relationship happening between an adult and a child, and you can say in the same two-hour meeting that she takes a special interest in helping kids navigate their sexuality."

The investigator hired by the district says Principal Scott Christy showed a "lack of urgency ... possibly a lack of memory ... and lack of follow-up." He says Christy saw the texts and calls as a "boundary issue," didn't tell Kearney to stop, and -- because Kearney was on military leave at the time -- believed the investigation could wait until she returned in six months, despite a Safe2Tell report indicating the relationship between the teacher and the student may have turned sexual.

The mom says after her daughter turned 18, she moved in with another teacher while Kearney was deployed, then went missing, and months later turned up in California with Kearney.

She says 10 school officials -- all mandatory reporters -- helped her daughter run away with a predatory teacher instead of alerting social services as required by law.

"What they ultimately did was stripped away our parental rights, inserted themselves as surrogate parents. If you did this once and there are no consequences, you're fully capable of doing it again."

The mom says she and her husband had to push Jeffco for months to launch the investigation into Kearney and then push the Colorado Department of Education two years later to revoke Kearney's teaching license. She says the district's chief legal counsel called the case "egregious" and yet told her she couldn't help ensure Kearney didn't teach again.

While Jeffco Public Schools says it "took every step to remove Kearney," the district admits she wasn't fired but rather resigned. The district says: "If we had not accepted her resignation, then she would have remained on leave pending a formal termination process that can take several months."

According to emails obtained through an open records request, the principal and district's Title IX coordinator initially planned to allow Kearney back in the classroom. The district says that was "due to Title IX's prescribed federal due process. However, this matter did not follow a Title IX path. It was treated as serious workplace misconduct."

The district has now decided to conduct an "after action review" three years after the mom first alerted the principal and four days after CBS Colorado's initial story.

The Sheriff's Office began investigating Kearney in 2023 but has not charged her. It is now investigating everyone else involved in the case.

Kearney didn't respond to a request for an interview.

Principal Scott Christy told the investigator he counsels students on their sexual orientation and says the girl didn't think her parents supported her being lesbian.

He said he didn't ask the parents about it because he was worried the girl would be resentful. Christy also didn't respond to a request for an interview.

The mom says, "Nothing has or ever will change the unconditional love we have for our daughter. Nothing. She was failed by Jeffco Schools, her predatory teacher, and 10 mandated reporters, but she will never be failed by her family. We have been fighting for her every day for 3 years and we will never stop."