Public Eye: How can someone accused of a sex crime get back into coaching?

Mark Ward served less than a week as the new baseball coach and assistant athletic director for the northwest Oklahoma school district in Woodward. He resigned after a public outcry condemning him for an incident with a minor nearly 30 years ago.

The community was disturbed about criminal charges Ward faced in the 1990s. News outlets, including The Oklahoman, reported at the time that he pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of sexual battery after being ordered to stand trial on charges of rape by instrumentation with an alternative charge of lewd molestation.

Ward, then 29, was a coach in nearby Vici in 1994 when a high school freshman told police he placed his hand in her pants and touched her genital area. As rumors swirled in 1996 about a criminal investigation, Ward was given the option to resign or be suspended during an inquiry. He chose to leave.

It wasn't long before he was back in school. The very next year, he coached at nearby Taloga until the charges from Vici were formally brought against him in 1998. As part of a plea deal with prosecutors, Ward was banned from working for another school system for the next two years.

What we found: Back to school

Ward's hiring in Woodward almost three decades later triggered questions about how someone with his legal history could end up back in a public school.

Actually, Ward had worked for other schools before coming to Woodward.

Every certified teacher must have a criminal history background check. The superintendents and school boards who hired Ward either knew about the allegations and hired him anyway — or they simply didn't know, despite publicly available news reports that could be found by just searching his name online.

Six years after his plea agreement, Ward returned to coaching in 2004 in El Reno. According to his own website, he also served briefly at Elk City Public Schools in 2008 and 2009.

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Public Eye called Galeard Roper, who at the time was Elk City superintendent and would have been responsible for hiring Ward. When asked whether he knew about the accusations beforehand, Roper declined to comment.

A decade after he left Elk City, Ward was hired in 2019 at Leedey, another small western Oklahoma district where he coached until being hired at Woodward this year.

Along the way he picked up years of experience as the coach of the Travelers, a summer baseball program for high school juniors and seniors, and college-age athletes. Ward has also served as a minister and motivational speaker since 2010, and a youth pastor since 2001, according to his website.

Proximity is the common thread linking the schools where Ward was hired to coach. With the exception of El Reno, every district is firmly nestled in rural western Oklahoma. You could visit them all in one afternoon.

Loophole in the law

So how could someone with his record get hired by a school?

Part of the answer, according to publicly available documents via the Oklahoma Supreme Court Network, is that Ward has no criminal record.

As part of his 1998 plea agreement, Dewey County allowed Ward to receive a two-year deferred sentence, spend two weekends in the county jail and pay a $100 fine. A deferred sentence allows expungement or dismissal of charges if the recipient stays out of trouble. That's likely why his case doesn't appear on OSCN.

More: Woodward coach, athletic director Mark Ward resigns after community objects to hiring

Current state law prevents the certification of teachers who have been convicted of a felony within the past 10 years. There's also a prohibition on certification of people convicted of child-related sex crimes. But again, Ward wasn't convicted.

Arrest records also can be expunged after a number of years, according to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, which would leave virtually no trace of his legal issues when running a background check.

"If an individual petitions for and satisfies the criteria for the arrest to be expunged, once the OSBI receives the expungement order from the court, the charge/arrest would be sealed," said OSBI spokesman Hunter McKee. "This means it would no longer be available to the public or for a national criminal history background check conducted for a non-criminal justice purpose, such as those conducted for a school employee."

Ward's website paints an image of penance and redemption.

"When I hit bottom after some of the critical mistakes of my past it took me 8 years chasing the Lord to get back on my feet," Ward wrote, seemingly in response to the furor over his recent hiring. "I took the job at Woodward Public Schools because I believe that is where I was sent for the next step in my walk with God. The bible tells us that we are ALL sinners and fall short of the glory of God. If that statement is true. Then ALL means ALL."

Public Eye reached out to Ward for this story, but he hasn't yet responded. We'd like to know whether he successfully had his case sealed from view of both the public and the school system, and whether he notified any of his employers about the charges.

After the public outcry against his hiring, Woodward Public Schools Superintendent Rusty Puffinbarger issued a statement declining to release details from Ward's background check, citing the district's confidentiality policy.

When asked whether he knew about Ward's legal history before offering him a job, Puffinbarger referred Public Eye to a previous statement that claimed the district followed the usual background checks and did reference checks with previous employers.

Puffinbarger, though, is one of those previous employers. As Leedey's superintendent in 2019, he hired Ward. And when Puffinbarger moved to Woodward this year, Ward followed a few months later.

A similar situation recently popped up in Oklahoma City's Western Heights Public Schools district involving a recently hired elementary principal. Shane Murnan was charged more than 20 years ago with possession of child pornography, but those charges were ultimately dismissed. A court document notes that no evidence of a crime was found.

That didn't stop community members from speaking out against Murnan's hiring last month. Oklahoma state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters also joined the fray after a conservative social media account claimed that Murnan also portrays a character in drag (which is not against the law).

It's not enough for school administrators to do the bare minimum when it comes to background checks, said Dan Hill, a spokesman and consultant for the U.S. Center for SafeSport, a congressionally authorized nonprofit that investigates abuse and misconduct within the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic movement.

"They'll say, 'We've checked the box, we've done a background check.' And as you probably know, many things, including a situation like this, don't show up in a background check," said Hill. "Exhaustive screening is really important."

The screening process can include specialized questions, like asking whether someone has been arrested or charged with a specific offense.

"The Center's view is that everyone has rights, but not everyone has the right to be a coach," Hill said.

As part of its mandate, SafeSport maintains a searchable database of disciplinary actions made against nearly 2,000 individuals connected with Olympic and Paralympic sports in the United States. It includes names of people alongside the allegations made against them, even if the individual avoided prosecution.

Oklahoma's public school system has nothing like it.

Do you have questions about what's happening in your community? Having trouble with impossibly slow bureaucracy or a sketchy business? Public Eye might be able to help. Email us at publiceye@oklahoman.com.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: How was an Oklahoma coach accused of sexual misconduct able to return?