Disturbing details emerge amid teacher’s plea in sex case
Staff writer
A former Peabody-Burns High School teacher pleaded no contest Tuesday to six felonies involving a student and faces a recommended 53-month prison sentence.
Brett McGee’s convictions include two counts of indecent liberties with a child, three counts of unlawful sexual relations between a teacher and student, and one count of aggravated intimidation of a witness. Six additional charges were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.
The student, 16, testified that their relationship began during her freshman year, when she was 14, after she and Brett McGee, who taught agriculture, developed a friendship through school activities. It escalated at school and during overnight school trips.
The victim testified that they had sex in the bathroom of an Airbnb during an FFA national convention in Indianapolis in October, 2024, while other students and a sponsor slept.
The encounters continued at an FFA state convention in Manhattan and at Brett McGee’s Hesston home in July, 2025, she testified.
The student testified that he sneaked her through his backyard fence to avoid detection by a Ring security camera while his wife, Nicole McGee, was away on a work trip.
School officials first learned of the relationship in 2023, according to sworn testimony at a preliminary hearing on April 10.
An unnamed student, also 16, testified that she reported the relationship to then-principal Ryan Bartel after the victim confided in her during the summer of 2023, when they both were 14.
Former superintendent Antoinette Root testified that Bartel immediately informed her.
The district investigated, but Root testified that any misconduct could not be substantiated beyond what she described as a mentor relationship.
Nevertheless, the student’s schedule was altered and other steps were taken to keep the two from being alone together, Root testified.
Root testified she did not report the matter to law enforcement and thought that Bartel had not done so. She said she did not know whether he contacted the Kansas Department for Children and Families.
The case did not reach law enforcement until February, 2026.
Nicole McGee, Brett McGee’s now estranged wife who has filed for divorce, testified that she discovered the relationship when one of the couple’s children pressed buttons on an Apple Watch, revealing a text thread containing inappropriate photos under a contact named “Steve.” After checking the contact’s attached email, she realized it was the student.
She testified that she went downstairs, threw the phone at her husband, and confronted him. She later contacted law enforcement.
Nicole McGee also testified that before his arrest, Brett McGee admitted with a smile that he had cleared his iCloud, wiped his phone, and changed his number before turning the device over to police.
Despite the tampering, detective Aaron Christner of the Marion County sheriff’s office testified that digital forensics recovered data from deleted texts.
Christner testified the extraction also recovered deleted web searches regarding life insurance after suicide, how to disconnect an Apple Watch, and how to get off the Kansas registered sex offender list.
This was not the first time a Peabody-Burns teacher has faced criminal allegations involving students.
In 2018, teacher Christopher R. Young pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a child involving students after initially being charged with multiple felony counts. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail followed by three years of community corrections.
District Judge Keith Collett has set McGee’s sentencing for Sept. 14.