Ronnie White spent 25 years as a Springfield teacher and coach. He moved, or was transferred, to five different schools. And his personnel file collected complaints — about sexual comments, touching and other inappropriate activity — involving at least 10 underage girls.

Over the years, more than a dozen school employees were told there was a problem, including teachers, counselors, principals, school police officers and human resources officials.

But White stayed in the classroom.

It wasn't until 2015, five years after he retired with full benefits, that the public received a hint of what select school officials had known for years: White had a problem keeping his hands to himself.

White was charged that year with committing sex crimes against a young teen early in his career. The former student, now in her 40s, told police White fondled her, engaged in oral sex and digitally penetrated her behind closed doors at her home and Parkview High School.

He pleaded guilty to deviate sexual assault, a felony. He was branded a sex offender.

At a hearing to determine jail time, a Greene County prosecutor dropped a bombshell: The girl was not the first to complain about White. Confidential school personnel records, obtained by the police, showed the former teacher was repeatedly accused of crossing the line with female students.

Although the details were not shared in court, the News-Leader was able to obtain the files through an open records request. The compiled documents reference troublesome interactions White allegedly had with at least 10 middle and high school girls while employed by Springfield Public Schools.

Allegations from the early 1990s to the late 2000s included behavior experts have described as textbook “grooming” of potential victims and, in some cases, involved inappropriate touching and sexually suggestive language.

“You had all these incidents of various degrees of inappropriate behavior that appear to all have been viewed in isolation from one another,” said Greene County Prosecutor Dan Patterson, whose office successfully prosecuted the case. He said if the incidents had been viewed together, it might have "caused a different reaction.”

Altogether, the records provide a rare glimpse into how the district handled investigations of a sexual nature and highlight cracks in the system that allowed White — and possibly other abusers — to remain in the classroom despite a string of allegations.

The documents also raise alarming questions:

Is anybody keeping track of school employees who are accused of crossing the line, even if they are not disciplined, to see if patterns emerge?

Why were investigations handled mostly “in house” with little or no involvement from law enforcement agencies?

If a teacher, previously accused of wrongdoing, moves from one school to the next, who has the right to know?

School officials will say little, despite repeated requests by the News-Leader, refusing to comment on White's case or make public the documents related to the complaints.

Details in the school records obtained by police prompted prosecutor Nathan Chapman to allege, at White’s sentencing, that he was “essentially being protected by his employers.” He noted school investigators repeatedly found that White did nothing wrong.

More than once, school officials questioned the credibility of the girls who came forward. At least one girl was asked to take a lie detector test. There is no record White was asked to do the same.

Another girl's allegations were dismissed, in part, because administrators were told by her guardian that she had been the victim of a previous rape and overreacted to all men as a result.

School records give no indication that White was reprimanded, beyond a sternly worded letter telling him to stop touching girls so they wouldn't misinterpret his “friendly gestures.”

The records also show allegations of inappropriate behavior by White were not secret. Over the years, they were reported to more than a dozen school employees, including teachers, counselors, principals, school police and human resources officials.

As part of the recent investigation, a former Parkview coach told police he knew White had a “relationship” with a student. He admitted walking in on the two, in a dark room, grabbing at their pants. He said he reported the incident to a counselor.

The counselor didn’t recall the report; neither did the principal. If any investigation was conducted, nothing came of it.

Other complaints, once reported and investigated, all but disappeared into a vacuum.

White moved from one school to the next. His record apparently did not follow.

Principals in schools where White worked toward the end of his career told the News-Leader he was “placed” there, but they were not told why. They said they were not told of any prior allegations.

If principals didn’t know, parents and students didn’t know either.

“He was put there by the district office,” said former Pipkin Middle School Principal Sharri Harwick. “Every now and then, I would get someone sent to me.”

Harwick and others said they were never given a heads-up about White's history.

“I didn’t know there had been any incidents before with him,” she said. “If I had known there had been, I would have watched him like a hawk.”

One principal said he was told about previous issues only after allegations surfaced in his building. At Pipkin, the final school where White worked, Harwick said she was never told, even after allegations were lodged there, as well.

No one seemed to be looking at the big picture. If a pattern was suspected, no one sounded the alarm.

The disconnect may have been due, in part, to a tug of war over how in-house personnel investigations were conducted in recent decades. Early in White’s career, they were handled by school police. Later, oversight was given to human resources.

School officials say the current setup is more of a hybrid, with mandatory involvement by outside agencies.

In the early 1990s, following the first complaint in White’s school record, the top school police official in charge of investigating complaints put in writing that he would keep an “open file” on White in case there were other allegations.

But when later allegations surfaced, there was no indication others were aware the file existed. Nothing was added to it over the years.

White's school records compiled by police show complaints of inappropriate touching or talking surfaced at three schools.

One girl said White rubbed her leg near her private area. There were allegations he patted and grabbed girls on the bottom and rubbed a female student on the back, under her shirt. He made comments about students' breasts and rear ends, students said. He was accused of rubbing up against a student, spreading a girl's legs apart and pulling a student onto his lap by her hips and bouncing her up and down.

While White was not removed from the classroom, his career trajectory is telling. He started out in a coveted role, as a gym teacher and head basketball coach at the high school level.

He garnered public attention as a winning coach at Parkview. In 1989, his team made it to the state quarterfinal and won the Ozark Conference championship; the team was runner-up three other years. In 1991, his team took second place in the Bass Pro Tournament of Champions.

After leaving Parkview, he moved around, mostly between middle schools, and was repeatedly assigned to supervise students during in-school suspension.

That job had less responsibility and less prestige, but it gave him greater access to students who were vulnerable — most were already in trouble and less likely to be believed.

Everett Isaacs, former principal of Central, recently acknowledged there were ongoing concerns with White’s behavior but said they weren’t enough to build a case for termination.

“We had things that were noticed, that came up, and we tried to address, but there was just one complaint," he said. "It was behaviors and talking and being somewhere you didn’t need to be."

Asked if he requested White be moved out of his building, Isaacs said he wouldn't answer the question. "I will say we didn't have anything he was certified to teach. We didn't have a place for him."

White's salary climbed over the years, no matter what jobs he performed. He retired at $58,419, making him one of the higher-paid teachers in the district at the time.

His former wife — with whom he still lives — is now a professor emeritus of education at Drury University. In the mid-1990s, she was a critical part of an innovative partnership between Drury, Yale University and center-city schools.

In that role, she worked with Pipkin and Central, where White was employed the final decade or so of his career.

Springfield school officials were tight-lipped about White following his arrest, initially refusing to even acknowledge the complaints that a judge forced the district to turn over to police.

Citing privacy laws, they have refused to discuss the details of White’s personnel file, including how the investigations were handled at the time. They have pointed out that many, if not all, the school officials in charge at the time are gone and that numerous policy changes have been made over the years.

“The conduct for which Ron White was convicted occurred between 1991 and 1993. The district’s practices that were in place in 1991-1993 have changed,” said Lisa Turner, chief human resources officer. “The district continues to review and revise its procedures on an annual basis and insure (sic) that it maintains policies which meet or exceed the requirements of federal and state law.”

The last allegation listed in White's personnel file was in 2008, just nine years ago.

School officials have been more forthcoming about how allegations are currently handled. They say administrators now work with outside law enforcement agencies, remove employees from buildings during investigations, and get rid of employees if allegations are substantiated.

Along with updated district policies, state laws regarding the mandated reporting of suspected inappropriate behavior have been strengthened since the first allegations surfaced more than 30 years ago.

That said, there is still no mechanism in place to alert principals if a teacher with one or more complaints of a sexual nature applies for a job in a new school.

The details, locked away in a confidential part of a personnel file, are only accessible by the district’s personnel investigator.

Patterson, the prosecutor, said his office did not hesitate to file charges, despite the passage of time, after the former student came forward. Her allegations, never reported to school officials while she was enrolled, were the most egregious that have come to light.

He said the other complaints, while less serious, ought to have raised red flags.

“It’s important that (White) be held accountable,” Patterson said. “It’s important for that victim to have justice for her and, frankly, sort of representatively, for the other young women who were at least groomed or attempted to be groomed.”