Evers Signs Bills Targeting Grooming, Tightening School Communication Rules

School classroom. (Pixabay License).

Gov. Tony Evers signed a pair of bills into law Friday that make grooming a crime and require school districts to adopt policies on appropriate communications.

“Keeping our kids safe, especially while they’re in our schools, must be a top priority for us, whether it’s addressing grooming, gun violence, bullying or other harmful behavior,” Evers said in a statement.

The bills were introduced last year after a report from the CapTimes that found there were over 200 investigations into teacher licenses stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct or grooming from 2018 to 2023, though bill authors, including Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie), said they had worked on the legislation for longer.

“After nearly two years of working to strengthen protections for children in Wisconsin, I’m grateful to see these two important bills signed into law,” Nedweski said in a statement. “This is a major step forward in protecting kids, supporting victims and ensuring that those who prey on children are held accountable.”

AB 677, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 88, defines grooming as “a course of conduct, pattern of behavior, or series of acts with the intention to condition, seduce, solicit, lure, or entice a child for the purpose of producing, distributing or possessing depictions of the child engaged in sexually explicit conduct.”

Some of the behaviors that could fall under the law include verbal comments, suggestions or conversations of a sexual nature directed toward a child, inappropriate physical contact or attempts to initiate such contact and communication via texts, emails, social media, or online platforms, meant to seduce, solicit, lure or entice a child.

Under the law, a person convicted of a grooming charge would be guilty of a Class G felony. The charge would increase to a Class F felony if the person is in a position of trust or authority, to a Class E felony if the child has a disability and to a Class D felony if the violation involves two or more children. A convicted person would need to register as a sex offender.

SB 673, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 89, requires public, private and independent charter schools to adopt appropriate communication policies for employees, volunteers and students. Policies will need to be in place by Sept. 1.

The policy will need to include a range of consequences for policy violations, apply to communications during and outside of school hours, including standards for appropriate content and methods of communication.

The Department of Public Instruction will need to develop and provide free training on professional boundary violations and identifying, preventing and reporting grooming. School boards will need to provide annual training to employees starting in the 2026-27 school year.

“We have an important obligation to make sure our kids can feel secure, supported, and cared for by educators and staff in our schools — adults they should be able to trust and depend on — while also providing more clarity about what interactions with students are inappropriate and unacceptable and enhancing punishments for adults who violate that sacred trust,” Evers said.

Evers also signed SB 466, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 93, that expands the Missing Child Alert program to include alerts about 10- and 11-year-olds.

Evers signs bills to make grooming a felony, require appropriate communications school policies was originally published by Wisconsin Examiner.