Mario Garcia was a “predator in the classroom,” according to new allegations against him.
Garcia was working as a third-grade teacher in West Chicago when there were sexual abuse and assault complaints made against him involving five students.
NBC 5 Investigates has learned that it wasn’t the first time the 54-year-old Garcia had been accused. He was charged with having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old student while working as a Chicago public school teacher in 2005. That alone should have disqualified Garcia from other teaching jobs.
At Currier Elementary School in West Chicago, pictures show third-grade teacher Mario Rene Garcia in front of his class. One year ago, before the start of the 2025-2026 school year, Garcia was among just a few teachers spotlighted by the district in their fall website focus.
This month, the spotlight was on Garcia not for his teaching prowess, but for his arrest on eleven felony counts in DuPage County, including predatory criminal sexual assault, alleging Garcia victimized children younger than 13 from his position of trust as a teacher.
On Garcia’s employment application with West Chicago, he stated that he’d never been terminated from a teaching job, which wasn’t true.
He was fired by Chicago Public Schools in 2005 after police said he had an after-school sexual relationship with a 14-year-old, and he was prosecuted. Garcia was acquitted 20 years ago, according to his attorney Karen M. Mondry, and the records were sealed. But Garcia remained on the do-not-hire list.
And a quick internet search by West Chicago officials would have turned up a Chicago Tribune story about Garcia’s arrest in 2005.
“From my experience following education systems, especially in Illinois, what we’ve come to learn and find out is that the schools are just so, and its administrators are so inundated with the demands of running schools and with somewhat of a shortage of educators and staffing needs that just trying to keep up with demands,” said educational consultant Tania Haigh with Savior Investigations and Consulting. “The timelines, with deadlines of just running in school are getting in the way of doing all the due diligence that’s required to weed out the bad apples.”
Haigh said parents and students should not be satisfied with the explanation that overworked school officials are too busy to adequately screen teaching candidates.
“If there’s one sector that needs to prioritize the adults entering the buildings that are serving our schools, our schools and the educators in the overall system. So I’m not giving them an excuse or an out by saying, hey, this is all that’s happening,” Haigh said.
NBC 5 Investigates also obtained Garcia’s disciplinary file from CPS under the Freedom of Information Act. Had West Chicago school officials examined this file before Garcia was hired, they would have seen:
An investigative memo, dated Aug. 2, 2005, citing a mother who “had intercepted a ‘sexually explicit’ email conversation” with Garcia. And that a school counselor interviewed the student, noting: “Mr. Garcia had engaged in sexual intercourse after school in his classroom on two separate occasions.”
Again: that was more than 20 years before authorities say Garcia assaulted five young students while working as a third-grade teacher in the suburbs.
State records and employment applications show that Garcia also worked in schools in Wheaton, Kane County, Cook County and homeschooled students.
“We’re seeing very similar parallels to what happened with the Catholic schools and the priests with this concept of skipping around,” Haigh said.“It’s exactly what’s happening with these perpetrators who are entering our schools. They might take a side pathway. It used to be they would cross into state lines. But now, as we’ve seen it with NBC coverage and other examples in our state, they’re just going up the highway or over to a different county. “
Garcia is being held in the DuPage County Jail without bond in that West Chicago school sex case. He has a court hearing next Monday.
West Chicago district board members discussed hiring practices and suggested they did due diligence prior to Garcia’s hiring, but said background check laws need to be strengthened.
