Luray, Mo. ? Time and again in their seven-month investigation, Associated Press reporters discovered cases in which educators accused of sexual misconduct continued to teach. One such case follows:

An anonymous phone call finally ended Greg Crowley’s 20-year teaching career.

Along the way, he’d been accused of touching his female basketball players inappropriately, of looking down their shirts and up their shorts. He also punched a former student and assaulted the grandfather of a player at a basketball game.

For Crowley, state personnel laws intended to protect an employee’s privacy provided a cover that allowed him to hop from one small, rural school district to the next, without any warning to his new bosses about his past problems. He held eight jobs in all.

But then came the phone call that raised questions about his sexual relationship with a high school girl in a town where he’d taught years earlier and 300 miles away. Those questions led to others, revealing how he had quietly resigned from another school after allegations of sexual misconduct.

“He got in trouble in every cotton-picking school he was employed at, and no one said anything,” said Alice St. Clair, a school nurse and secretary in Luray, where Crowley held his last job. He was elementary school principal in this town in the state’s northeastern corner. “They wanted it to go away. The schools didn’t want a lawsuit.”

In 2000, Crowley resigned from the Kingston school district following sexual harassment and misconduct complaints from at least a dozen students. Five pages of complaints cite “sexual or inappropriate behavior” and “immoral conduct.”

But rather than report him to the state, the district accepted his resignation and paid him a severance worth more than $16,000. Officials agreed not to tell future employers the real reason Crowley left.

State law requires local districts to report certain severe offenses, including child abuse, to authorities, said state attorney Kris Morrow. For lesser misconduct, districts have more discretion.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Crowley accepted no blame. He said the harassment charges came from vindictive female athletes angry after he kicked them off the team. His fights were self-defense, he said.

And the sexual relationship with a high school student? Crowley, now 45, said the girl had turned 18 – though she told police and state investigators that it began when she was either 16 or 17.

“I feel like I got the shaft,” he said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Crowley, once certified to teach physical education and coach, is now selling cars in Columbia. He says he voluntarily surrendered his license because he was tired of fighting the allegations. State records say his license was revoked.