How a Baltimore community’s search for a missing teacher ended with news of his arrest

When Elizabeth Cook heard her daughter’s seventh grade science teacher was missing Monday morning, she left work to join the search. Hamilton Elementary/Middle School parents had mobilized quickly to find Rogie Legaspi.

But Cook never got to hang a single missing-person poster.

She was biking home from FedEx with 40 flyers when a cryptic message came in. Someone said he’d been found in Pennsylvania. Another message said Legaspi’s family was asking everyone to stop searching.

The greatest shock came when Cook ran Legaspi’s name through the Pennsylvania courts website. He was arrested, facing 56 charges filed Friday related to alleged sexual abuse of a teenage boy.

“I let the other parents know, and I just felt this horrible feeling,” Cook said. “I was going to have to talk to my daughter about it.”

As the news spread, the search for the missing teacher transformed into a crisis for the Baltimore public school’s community. Police in Chester County, Pennsylvania, allege Legaspi began abusing the victim when he was 13, the same age as some of his students. Legaspi at times paid the boy and brought another man to a hotel to sexually abuse him, charging documents state.

“To find out he wasn’t missing, he was arrested for insanely deviant behavior, was just a gut punch for most of us,” said Melanie Kerr, the parent of a Hamilton seventh grader.

The Chester County Public Defender’s Office, which does not comment on clients, is representing Legaspi. His preliminary hearing is Oct. 12.

Through their kids, Hamilton parents knew Legaspi as a strict but effective educator.

Kerr said some kids didn’t like how stringent he could be — one parent said students weren’t allowed to talk as they entered his classroom — but her son thought he was good and fair.

“We hear this teacher’s name in my house every day my son comes home from school,” Kerr said. “He seemed to be really passionate about science, which I thought was really cool. ... He didn’t give me any red flags.”

Legaspi taught science, including to about 30 seventh graders participating in the Ingenuity Project, an advanced math and science program for middle and high schoolers. Legaspi has been employed by Baltimore City Public Schools since 2008, spokesperson Sherry Christian said.

Christian said the district has not identified any complaints against Legaspi. He has been placed on paid administrative leave.

Legaspi has been a teacher for 35 years, according to a biography posted for the district’s 2020 New Teacher Summer Institute. He also has taught in the Philippines and Texas.

He started his Baltimore career at Vivien T. Thomas Medical Arts Academy, according to a self-submitted biography for internal 2016 elections for the Baltimore Teachers Union. At the time, Legaspi said he was married with children attending the city’s public schools. He worked for two years at the now-shuttered charter Baltimore Collegiate School for Boys, and he was once a BTU officer.

Ingenuity Project Executive Director Lisette Morris said her organization will support the teacher the district selects to take over his classes.

“We’ll make sure that we work with the teacher to give the kids grace,” Morris said.

Cook feels this may be a transformative moment for her daughter, as she learns her teacher may have preyed on a child her age. She was reminded of that every time she saw the bicycle bag that once held the missing-person posters in the days following the news.

“I don’t know what to do with them. I’m so upset with him,” Cook said Tuesday. “His face is right there.”

Banner reporter Dylan Segelbaum contributed to this story.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.