A Wauconda District 118 middle school teacher and volleyball coach, who lives in Crystal Lake, was arrested after investigators found he allegedly distributed child sexual abuse material.
John M. Anderlik, 27, of Crystal Lake, was charged with two counts of disseminating child sexual abuse material, a Class X felony, and two counts of possession of child sexual abuse material, a Class 2 felony.
The Crystal Lake Police Department began investigating Anderlik through information from the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, of which the police department is a participating member.
An “immediate investigation” was prompted, according to Crystal Lake Deputy Police Chief Richard Neumann.
The Criminal Investigations Unit conducted the investigation, which led to the issuance of a search warrant for Anderlik’s residence.
Neumann said the Crystal Lake Police Department conducted the search at the residence in the 1600 block of Carlemont Drive in Crystal Lake on Thursday morning.
Crystal Lake police detectives took Anderlik into custody on the multiple felony offenses.
A LinkedIn profile for Anderlik said he is a full-time English Language Arts teacher at Matthews Middle School in Island Lake in Wauconda Community Unit School District 118.
His profile says he has been head coach of the district’s seventh-grade volleyball program since January 2022 and was an assistant varsity coach for the district from June to November 2025.
The LinkedIn profile said Anderlik was an adjunct professor at the College of Lake County in 2025. A spokesperson for CLC said Thursday that Anderlik does not currently teach at the school.
His Facebook profile said he started working as a 12U coach at Sky High Volleyball in Crystal Lake in April.
Anderlik has a TikTok account, which identifies him as a teacher and has more than 12,000 followers. Many of the videos on the account appear to have been filmed in a classroom.
The bio on the account tells students who come across it to “leave you weirdo.”
Anderlik also directed week-long Camp Invention STEM camps for elementary students at Cotton Creek Elementary School in Island Lake in the summers of 2022 and 2023, according to his Facebook page.
Wauconda Community Unit School District 118, College of Lake County and Sky High Volleyball did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Lake and McHenry County Scanner on Thursday morning.
Anderlik was an Early Career Educator nominee at the 2025 Educator of the Year organized by the Lake County Regional Office of Education.
Anderlik was a student teacher at Heineman Middle School in Algonquin in 2021 during his final semester at Illinois State University while also working for McHenry School District 15 for several years, his LinkedIn profile said.
Anderlik holds a Professional Educator License issued in May 2021, according to Illinois State Board of Education records.
Anderlik, a McHenry East High School graduate, was named a Golden Apple Scholar in 2018.
The Crystal Lake Police Department said it is continuing to investigate the criminal actions of Anderlik.
Court records were not immediately available for Anderlik’s case but he is likely to appear in Initial Appearance Court on Thursday afternoon.
The department is encouraging anyone who may have information relating to the investigation to call it at 815-356-3620.
Anyone with a cell phone can send an anonymous tip to the police department by texting the word CLPDTIP along with the tip information to 847411.