The father of a Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) student says the state Department of Education will not investigate after he says his third-grade son was exposed to pornography on a teacher’s iPad at school.

Levi Chapman, parent, said his son will be in therapy soon to cope with what he saw.

On Friday, May 2, his son borrowed his teacher’s iPad in his third-grade class. His dad said he closed a tab and inappropriate content appeared. 

RELATED: Parent asking for answers after MPS student given access to inappropriate content during class

“It’s still a little bit uncomfortable for him, but they have him in a new classroom,” Chapman said.

Chapman said the Department of Education reached out to talk to him about what happened to his son, but they circled back, saying they will not investigate what happened.

“Because my son wasn’t sexually abused, and also that they said that it doesn’t meet the criteria of negligence due to the fact that it was unintentional,” Chapman said. “I was enraged.”

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS reached out to the Department of Education at 11 a.m. Wednesday morning to ask why they’re not investigating.

They responded with the following statement:

“MDE is committed to ensuring all students have the opportunity to thrive in safe, supportive school communities. Pursuant to Minn. Stat 260E, the Reporting of Maltreatment of Minors Act, all maltreatment-related data is classified as confidential and/or private/non-public. We cannot confirm or deny the receipt of any report or investigation of alleged maltreatment.”

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS submitted a data request with Minneapolis Public Schools, asking for the teacher’s personnel file and a separation agreement that would show if he was fired.

We followed up by phone around 11:30 a.m. Monday and a district official said Minneapolis police are now investigating.

After the call, MPS sent the following statement, which we also received last week: “Minneapolis Public Schools takes allegations like these seriously and will follow any relevant district protocols. Due to data privacy laws, we are unable to disclose specific details relating to this incident.”

We asked the district again what steps will be taken to ensure this does not happen again. They declined to answer “to ensure compliance with data privacy laws.”

District officials pointed us toward the district’s regulations related to internet, email, and network rules for staff use.

In those rules, it says, “Personally owned devices are brought to work and used by staff at their own risk.” It goes on to say, “Internet access through personally owned devices shall have the same filtered access to the internet as District-owned devices while accessing the internet through District wireless services.”

The policy also states that personal devices may be searched by district personnel upon reasonable suspicion that the device has been used inappropriately under district policies and rules.

Chapman said after nearly three weeks of no accountability, he wants to see action.

“I want to see them actually do their job,” Chapman said. “I want to know what was going on. I want to know, was he [teacher] looking at this during the school [day]?”

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS was initially told by the district that Minneapolis Police are investigating the incident, however, district officials have since said MPD isn’t investigating.