Hudson teacher charged with sexual assault of 5th grade student

A western Wisconsin elementary school teacher has been arrested and charged with sexually assaulting an 11-year-old student.

According to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in St. Croix District Court, Madison Lynn Bergmann of St. Paul kissed the fifth-grader on the mouth and touched his leg in her classroom at Rivercrest Elementary School in Hudson. Bergmann, 24, is charged with first-degree sexual assault of a child under 13 years old.

Bergmann was arrested at school on Wednesday and released from the St. Croix County Jail on $25,000 bail the next day after her initial court appearance. She is due back in court on May 30.

Bergmann’s lawyer Joe Tamburino declined to comment on the allegations on Monday.

The Hudson School District said Bergmann was placed on unpaid administrative leave Thursday. She began teaching in the district in fall 2022.

The unlawful behavior was first revealed last week through several text messages between Bergmann and the boy. In a letter that police then found in the boy’s desk, Bergmann told him, “I love you so much it hurts,” the complaint says.

According to the complaint, Principal Kim Osterhues called the school resource officer on Wednesday about alleged inappropriate behavior between a teacher and a student. The officer met with Osterhues, the Hudson School District’s human resources director and the boy’s father.

The officer was given several printed screenshots of text messages between the boy and Bergmann. In one text, Bergmann wrote that she “just wanted to grab your face and push you to the ground and make out with you.” In another text message, the teacher told the boy that she “almost kissed you today when you were on the floor, but I was distracted by your stomach,” the complaint states.

Parents discovered communication

The boy’s mother discovered Bergmann talking to her son on the phone on April 29, then sent an email to the teacher asking her to stop contacting the boy outside of school. The mother took the boy’s phone and gave it to his father, who found the text message on Wednesday and notified the school, the complaint says.

In an interview Wednesday at school, Bergmann said she spoke to the boy on the phone four or five times. She said she had been invited to Afton Alps snowboarding with the boy and his family and that she had exchanged phone numbers with him in case of a break-up.

When Bergmann was asked whether text messages had been exchanged between her and the boy, she asked for a lawyer.

In Bergmann’s backpack, the police found a folder with the boy’s name and several handwritten notes. “In her notes, she tells him that she loves him, wants to kiss him, that he turns her on and that she is obsessed with him,” the complaint states.

The boy told police he got Bergmann’s phone number while they were snowboarding with his mother in Afton Alps. He said they communicate almost daily.

The boy said Bergmann touched his hand, shin and thigh while sitting next to her desk while reading independently and that “he didn’t think any of the other children would see that,” the complaint says.

The boy then told police that Bergmann told him to stay after class and that she came up to him and kissed him on the mouth. He said Bergmann had kissed him several times since March in the classroom after school or at lunch, the complaint said.

The school district said Monday that it notified parents of the allegations via email on the day of her arrest. In a Sunday email to parents, Superintendent Nick Ouellette called the allegations “shocking” and added, “I want you to know that the school district is taking this very seriously.”