After-school aide in Champlin is charged with sexual misconduct

A north suburban school employee was charged Monday with sending sexually explicit text messages to an 11-year-old boy asking him to photograph parts of his body.

Phillip F. Chwialkowski, 23, of Osseo, was charged in Hennepin County District Court with solicitation of a child to engage in sexual conduct.

He is now on unpaid leave from the district.

Chwialkowski worked in an after-school program, Adventures Plus, at Oxbow Creek Elementary School and as a baseball coach at Jackson Middle School. Both schools are in Champlin.

The Anoka-Hennepin School District has put him on administrative leave and asked parents to report any other possible victims.

Schools spokeswoman Sarah Schwartz said last week that at least two boys at Oxbow received text messages.

"We want you to know that we take this very seriously," Oxbow Creek Principal Rolf Carlsen wrote in a letter to parents. "We want to assure you that the safety of our students is our top priority."

Police said they have no evidence he had sexual contact with students and they do not believe any of the photos requested from the boy were sent. According to the criminal complaint, filed late last week in Hennepin County District Court, the boy's mother was looking at her son's phone when it started receiving sexually related text messages from Chwialkowski.

The messages, some explicit, asked the boy what he was wearing and asked if he wanted to talk about "sexy stuff." The last message stated, "This is Phil." Investigators met with the boy, who told them "he was very close with the defendant and that they often stated that they loved one another."

During interviews with police, Chwialkowski admitted he had sent the messages and said he "wondered if he was a pedophile," according to the complaint. He was being held in jail in lieu of $150,000 bail.

State records show that Chwialkowski was not a certified teacher in the district. Though Minnesota school districts are required to do Bureau of Criminal Apprehension checks on all employees, interpreting a criminal record is left up to each school district.

Schwartz said no background check was done at the time of Chwialkowski's hiring in June 2001 because he was 17 and still a student at Champlin Park High, when he started with the Adventures Plus program. Since then, he had remained a part-time employee who was well-liked, Schwartz said.

"He's been a model employee," she said. "All the staff really liked him, the students liked him and the parents liked him, so it's kind of a shock. He's been a wonderful employee for us."

A Star Tribune check showed that Chwialkowski does not appear to have a criminal history in Minnesota. A phone call to his home was not returned.

Chwialkowski worked several part-time jobs with after-school programs at Oxbow Creek and Jackson Middle School in Champlin. His arrest was the most recent in a spate of Minnesota teachers and coaches accused of sexual misconduct within the past year.

Those cases include a former Big Lake High coach accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old; a Montgomery-Lonsdale teacher and coach convicted of having sex with a student; an assistant wrestling coach at Coon Rapids High charged with raping a woman he met at a bar; an assistant hockey coach at Robbinsdale Cooper High charged with having sex with a 16-year-old; an instructor in the Forest Lake schools' community education program charged with having sex with a 15-year-old, and an ex-Hill-Murray coach charged with offering money to a teen for sex.

Abby Simons • 612-673-4921 Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482