Parents of Joliet elementary school students outraged after custodian charged with possessing child pornography
A Joliet elementary school janitor was fired after he was charged with child pornography charges. Now parents are concerned their children could be part of any of his videos or photos.
At a school board meeting on Wednesday night, parents said they are upset with not only what happened with the custodian, but also how District 86 handled the situation.
They said school officials knew the custodian was under a criminal investigation back in October, but were not told by the district until just last week.
Dozens of Eisenhower Elementary School parents came to voice their concerns to the District 86 school board after they just found out janitor, Jeremy Ledesma, 23, was charged with three counts of child pornography.
"I was sickened, it's supposed to be a good school, and no one told us about nothing," said parent Ray Hernandez.
His son attends the elementary school.
"I'm thinking, is this guy filming our children there? Because the sheriff knows there are tapes out there," he said.
District 86 said Ledesma has been with them for three years. They said he passed all the required state and FBI background checks and worked at Eisenhower and Edna Keith Elementary.
The Will County Sheriff's Office said they were alerted about a Snapchat message with child sexual abuse back in May, but it wasn't until September that they got an address for where it was coming from.
In October, Joliet Public Schools were told an investigation was underway involving Ledesma. That's when the district said they placed him on leave without pay. Eisenhower parents found out only days ago, when Ledesma was arrested and charged this month.
"If you walked him off school property, then why wasn't something sent out? Even if they didn't know the details of the investigation, there's something still should have been communicated," said parent Corrie Selesky.
"We want transparency from the district and when did you actually know? What is the true timeline? And what are you going to do going forward?" Amy Wendell-Blish said.
The school board officially terminated Ledesma and apologized to parents during the meeting.
"And we acknowledge that our communication did not meet the standards our community deserves," said School Board President Jesse Smith.
Parents said they are still uneasy and feel in the dark, not knowing if their kids could be pieces of court evidence.
"There is evidence out there and videos out there, and none of us know what kids those are," Selesky said.
Ledesma did have a battery charge involving physical contact back in 2024. CBS Chicago asked the district if they were notified of that. They said that because it was a misdemeanor, not a felony, they were not notified.
Ledesma is due in court on Friday.