For years, Howie Leung sexually assaulted a Concord student and pursued others. Administrators repeatedly missed warning signs and failed to thoroughly investigate complaints made about his behavior, allowing the teacher to keep his job.
That is, until a report landed on Diana Fenton’s desk.
As director of the state Department of Education’s governance unit, charged with overseeing investigations into educator misconduct, Fenton could tell something was off when the Concord School District notified her office of an internal investigation into Leung in early 2019. Looking at allegations that Concord had decided weren’t worth pursuing against Leung, she felt they were “a little more concerning.”
She had the Department of Education report Leung to the Concord Police Department, which arrested him just a few months later. He’s now serving out a seven-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a Concord teenager in Massachusetts, and still faces charges from New Hampshire prosecutors in Merrimack County.
“I wasn’t quite sure what it meant,” said Fenton. She declined to discuss details of the case because of the pending charges. “It wasn’t glaring, in that sense, wasn’t immediately apparent, but I just, I was a prosecutor for a long time, and I just wanted to make sure that child was OK.”
Fenton is now on track to replace Cassandra Sanchez as the state’s next child advocate. If she wins the Executive Council’s approval, she’ll lead the office that conducts oversight of child welfare systems in New Hampshire.
Fenton was nominated by Gov. Kelly Ayotte. The two worked together at the Department of Justice when Ayotte was the New Hampshire Attorney General and Fenton was an assistant attorney general. Fenton said one of her main goals as the child advocate would be to grow the state’s network of foster parents. As of last year, only 450 families in New Hampshire were licensed to take in a child — far fewer than the 1,200 youth in the state’s child protective system.
Fenton and her husband, Circuit Court Judge Todd Prevett, are among the ranks of the state’s foster parents. They had “a lot of love to give,” she said, and wanted to help a child.
Growing the state’s base of foster families will be a “critical part” of improving child welfare in New Hampshire, she said.
“It is a system built on human capital, and we need good people to serve as foster parents because the kids in the system need it,” Fenton said. “I myself am a licensed foster parent, and I’m very proud of that, and it’s given me great insight into the system, and I want to support that system and see how we can work together to really build that base of foster families.”
In nominating Fenton earlier this week, Ayotte said she would be a “steadfast voice for our most vulnerable.”
Fenton would replace Sanchez, who has served as child advocate since 2022. Sanchez said this week that she believes Ayotte did not reappoint her because she advocated against Republican-backed LGBTQ+ legislation, including a transgender sports bans and a parental bill of rights.
“It has been an absolute honor to represent the voices of children across New Hampshire and to advocate for a better system for all Granite Staters,” Sanchez said in a statement to the Monitor. “This office has made an impact beyond what I ever could have imagined. I am grateful I was given the opportunity to revel in those successes. Although I am deeply saddened to not continue in this role, I am confident that I leave behind a strong and capable team that will continue the great work we have started.”
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Ayotte denied Sanchez’s characterization that she was ousted for speaking up, but the governor did not say why she declined to extend her term. Instead, Ayotte said, she simply picked the best person for the job.
“It’s not a political decision, and that position, especially, is not a political position,” Ayotte said. “We all care about protecting children in this state … and we all know that there are improvements that need to be made to the system.”
Republicans tried to eliminate the Office of the Child Advocate in last year’s budget negotiations, then settled on downsizing and clarifying that the child advocate’s work must be done in a “non-partisan manner.”
Fenton said she does not have any legislative priorities going into the position but plans to work with lawmakers and the state’s Division of Children, Youth and Families, which runs the child protective system in New Hampshire.
At the Department of Education, Fenton said, she’s worked with lawmakers to better regulate who can become an educator in New Hampshire. She worked on legislation that allows the Department of Education to check the state registry for abuse allegations and run background checks on all teacher applicants to ensure they haven’t committed disqualifying criminal offenses. They also passed laws that restrict anyone with a suspended or revoked license from being hired or selected as a school volunteer.
For Fenton, collaboration is key — she said she wants to problem-solve with lawmakers and the state’s child protection workers. If she’s confirmed, she said, one of her first priorities would be to talk with people who work in the system to hear about their challenges and ideas.
At the same time, her role may have competing interests with other state agencies. The Office of the Child Advocate is an independent watchdog agency, created in 2017 after two young children were killed by their mothers despite documented reports of abuse to the state, prompting calls for more oversight. Part of Fenton’s job will be to investigate complaints made against the state systems that she wants to work with.
Fenton said that requires a “healthy tension,” a skill she built while helping school districts navigate how to remove educators who were deemed unfit to be around kids.
“I want to take that skill set and move it over to DCYF,” Fenton said. “Yes, there will be times where there will be that push and pull, that healthy tension, but it’s based upon respect and recognizing that the agency does a lot of good, hard work and there are areas where we can support it and make it better.”
Before working as an assistant attorney general under Ayotte, Fenton served as a prosecutor in Antrim, Bennington and Deering. She lives in Mont Vernon.
The Executive Council will vote on whether to confirm Fenton for the role in the coming weeks.