New sex ed standards could be a tool to help students identify grooming

An MPR News story published this week looks at what Eagan police described as an alleged “pattern of predatory grooming” by former high school music teacher Brett Benson. That conclusion came out of a police detective's report following a nearly two-year investigation.

Its allegations include that Benson paid special attention to some girls in his class, flirted with them, found reasons to spend time alone with them and exchanged private text messages with them. When some students turned 18, the text messages became sexual, according to the detective's report. The report said one student alleged that Benson made sexual contact with her on the last day of her senior year.

Police referred the case to the Dakota County Attorney's Office for possible charges. No charges were ever filed, and Benson denied doing anything inappropriate.

One of the students who talked with Eagan police and MPR News has also met with officials like state representative Liz Reyer about strengthening protections for students. That includes considering whether grooming should be a standalone crime. Under current law, it can only be tacked onto an existing charge of sexual assault. Reyer told MPR News finding the language for such a change is complex.

“There are so many behaviors that could be well intended, but as soon as it crosses over, you can see that it was grooming,” she said. “So the work that I'm doing is to really work on the definitions and what are the behaviors that can't occur; for example, being alone in a room or texting outside of an appropriate relationship.”

Reyer said sex education also has a role to play. The state of Minnesota is finalizing new health standards to implement next year. One advocate who has been pushing for those standards to include more comprehensive sex education is Meg Bartlett-Chase. She is founder and executive director of the organization Honest Sex Ed Minnesota.

She joined MPR News host Nina Moini to share more about what inappropriate behavior like grooming looks like and whether the new standards could help students recognize it.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

What is grooming, and what are some warning signs?

The broader definition of grooming [is] a manipulative or intentional process where an adult can build a relationship with the young person that then becomes inappropriate or has a goal of manipulation, exploitation or abuse. It can happen within schools and within any relationship where an adult has a position of authority over a child. Signs of grooming [include] lots of time alone between an adult and a child, communicating in ways that are not typical or appropriate of the relationship, keeping secrets, giving gifts and making promises.

What makes it difficult for students to recognize possible grooming?

Grooming is so deeply connected to the process of building trust that it can be really difficult to tease apart what is a truly trusted and accessible adult in your life or someone who is trying to make you feel exceedingly special, make you feel over-the-top-able-to-have-complete-loyalty to them and isolate yourself from others. Those lines between a trusted adult and someone who is grooming a child are really intentionally blurry from that manipulative adult's perspective.

What education, if any, do students in Minnesota get around grooming?

Minnesota has not actually had statewide health standards for education before. In the 2024 legislative session, we saw a move to have statewide health education standards. Those have been in development for the last year or so, with a committee and council of professionals, educators, students, all put together by the Minnesota Department of Education. That final draft will be coming out in early November, I believe. We historically have had incredibly inconsistent and, frankly, unmeasurable levels of education around grooming or child sexual abuse. It's been really difficult with our system to actually know what's happening. So I would say, as a blanket, insufficient.

What do best practices for sex education look like?

The easy phrase here is “early and often” for conversations about consent, personal boundaries and wellbeing. Conversations early in life can be as simple as, “Would you like a high five or a hug today?” Those really basic building blocks of letting a kid know, your body's yours, you get to make decisions around it. And not in a hyper-sexualized way, not in a way that is creating fear or isn't age-appropriate, because that's not really building great sexual education either. But making sure that we're having those practices early, where a student has the ability to make choices for themselves about their bodies and knows who they can go to.

What do you know about the new standards?

There are a few different examples of specific violence prevention benchmarks within the standards that I think speak to these issues directly. In kindergarten, an example of a benchmark coming in the health standards is identifying situations that may cause strong or uncomfortable feelings and explaining how to ask for help from a trusted adult. In third grade, describing the right to bodily autonomy and personal boundaries is a benchmark that all students should be able to achieve. In sixth grade, describing the characteristics of a healthy and unhealthy relationship across family, peer and romantic relationships. These are skill-building and knowledge-based standards and benchmarks that hopefully will help teachers, students and parents build a common vocabulary in this space as well.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.