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The state’s largest teacher’s union says teachers who have sex with their 18-year-old students should not necessarily face felony charges. The Washington Education Association filed a “friend of the court” briefing in the state Court of Appeals case of former Hoquiam High School choir teacher Matthew Hirschfelder, accused of having sexual relations with one of his 18-year-old students. “Eighteen- year olds aren’t kids,” union spokesman Rich Wood said. “They are minors. … And should consenting adults be subject to criminal charges? That’s the question behind this case and this law.” Hirschfelder has been charged with first-degree sexual misconduct with a...

CLINTON, N.C. - A former North Carolina middle school teacher accused of having sex with a 15-year-old student has been arrested again after police found her with the same boy. Jeannie Michelle Hodges resigned as a language arts teacher from Hobbton Middle School just before she was charged in July with statutory rape and accused of having an affair with a former student. Released on bond, the 40-year-old Autryville woman was ordered to stay away from the boy. But WRAL-TV reports Friday that Hodges was arrested Aug. 30 after authorities stopped her car at a checkpoint. The teen was driving,...

"Sex with students is bad, but why should it be the case that for women it's a case of 'poor boundaries' and for men it's hardcore brutal predation of the most evil sort?"Jay, a reader, recently wrote me a letter about an article in Oprah magazine on the number of female teachers caught having sex with their students, such as Debra Lafave (pictured). The article is "Why Did the Teacher Have Sex With Her Student?"Jay writes: My wife and I both had problems with the article, but it was interesting that we had two different problems. Here are some of...

Oprah Magazine: Female Teachers Who Have Sex with Students Are Misguided Poor Souls Looking for Love… 2008-08-27 "Sex with students is bad, but why should it be the case that for women it's a case of 'poor boundaries' and for men it's hardcore brutal predation of the most evil sort?" Jay, a reader, recently wrote me a letter about an article in Oprah magazine on the number of female teachers caught having sex with their students, such as Debra Lafave (pictured). The article is "Why Did the Teacher Have Sex With Her Student?" Jay writes: My wife and I both...

<p>Autumn Leathers, a Maryland teacher, was arrested Wednesday for an alleged sexual relationship with a student.</p> <p>Leathers, 24, taught English at Mountain Ridge High School in Frostburg, MD, but has been placed on leave and faces termination proceedings. Leathers faces numerous charges, including child abuse, child sexual abuse, and sex offenses.</p>

A former Moon Area High School health and gym teacher who had sex with a freshman and sent him nude pictures of herself continued to contact the student even after police arrested her, a prosecutor said Wednesday. Beth Ann Chester, 27, of Scott was sentenced to 1 1/2 to 3 years in jail in a deal with prosecutors for pleading guilty to three charges stemming from the romantic relationship she had with the then-14-year-old boy. "I wanted to apologize to everyone," Chester told Common Pleas Judge David R. Cashman. "I know this is the punishment I deserve. I'm really sorry...

TEACHERS GONE WILD! III Herman Wouk’s Captain Queeg may have been a fictional character in The Caine Mutiny (http://www.answers.com/topic/the-caine-mutiny) but he must have been the hero of Principal C., who is included in “Teachers Gone Wild” since, back in the old days at least, principals began their careers as lowly teachers. Known by much of the high school staff which he eventually commanded as a legend in his own mind, it took much less than the disappearance of a quart of strawberries from an icebox to trigger radical behavior from Principal C. Imported from Massachusetts to our Long Island school...

Please refer to the earlier post on this subject which serves as an introduction. One commenter on FreeRepublic.com rhetorically asked after reading that introduction, “Is it any wonder many people today want to homeschool kids?” For reasons including their safety from predator teachers in our schools as well as the facts that discipline is often chaotic and actual education is a hit or miss proposition in those schools, homeschooling is easily the better choice for those parents who can handle the challenge. For further information and resources on homeschooling your kids, see http://www.home-school.com/, http://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/, and http://www.homeschoolcentral.com/. “Jennie,” (not her real...

At the risk of playing a game of Can You Top This? I thought this expose’ by ParentDish.com was either an exercise in naivete’ or an intentional cover up of what’s actually going on in America’s public schools: http://www.parentdish.com/2008/08/18/teacher-texts-talks-to-teen/?icid=200100397×1207972092x1200439589. Granted, all the snippets provided there are examples of teachers being unprofessional and worse, ranging from male teachers texting and calling high school girls at all hours of the night, to female teachers berating four year olds for refusing to nap, to nutty teachers branding students, to female teachers bedding their male students. I’m not trying to mitigate the offenses of...

A Northampton County, Pa., assistant district attorney today spelled out how Warren County teacher Keri Ann Brekne systematically befriended the then-14-year-old student before sexually assaulting her over a nearly six-month stretch beginning last Fourth of July in the teacher's Pennsylvania home. Brekne, 28, a Lopatcong Township Middle School social studies teacher, pleaded guilty to five counts of aggravated indecent assault and was led away in handcuffs in front of the victim's family and friends, many glaring at the educator they once trusted.

Greensboro, NC -- Greensboro police arrested Leanne Elizabeth Macklin Wednesday. She was a drama teacher at the Weaver Academy. Investigators recieved a complaint on July 1 alleging Macklin had a sexual relationship with a student. On Monday July 21, five warrants were issused for her arrest. She was charged with sexual activity between school personnel and a student. Officers believe Macklin engaged in sexual activity with one student. Macklin turned herself into police. She was out on bond Wednesday evening. This case is still under investigation. Police want anyone information about the case to contact the Greensboro Police Department Criminal...

Autryville, N.C. — A former Hobbton Middle School teacher was charged Tuesday with having a sexual relationship with one of her former students, authorities said. Jeannie Michelle Hodges, 39, of 12237 Dunn Road in Autryville, was charged with statutory rape, sexual offense with a student and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She was being held in the Sampson County Detention Center under a $50,000 bond. The Sampson County Sheriff's Office received a tip last month that a teacher had had an affair with a 15-year-old student while working at Hobbton Middle in Newton Grove. Investigators determined the relationship...

Grossmont Union High School District Governing Board President Larry Urdahl still can't believe that four Helix High School teachers violated students' trust by allegedly engaging in inappropriate relationships with them. That's why the board wants the charter school to give them evidence it's curing these types of problems. "This is not about the Grossmont Union High School District, it's not about the adults, it's about the safety of kids, and that is one of our prime concerns," superintendent Bob Collins said. Specifically, the Grossmont Board is demanding Helix's governing Board address the four cases of misconduct, training planned or already...

TAMPA - The ankle monitor has come off. Schoolteacher-turned-sex-offender Debra Lafave no longer will have to provide Florida Department of Corrections officials her daily schedule, and they no longer will keep minute-by-minute track of her whereabouts. With Lafave having served more than 2 1/2 years of a three-year house-arrest sentence, a judge commuted the final five months to probation. She will remain on probation for seven years. Probation officials were to remove Lafave's electronic ankle monitor at their Plant City office this morning, said DOC spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger. Shortly before 10 a.m., officials in Plant City said Lafave already had...

NEW YORK -- A Dutchess County special education teacher has been accused of having sex with a 15-year-old disabled student. Teacher Mandi Weeks, 27, was arrested on Monday in Queens. She admitted to having sex with her student at the Devereux Foundation NY Center for the past month, according to police. Weeks is being charged with two counts of rape with a child under the age of 21 and two acts of acting in a manner to injure a child under the age of 17. The student was in the school’s residential program and lived on campus. He had been...

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Forty-two-year-old Janelle Batkins of Harrison Township pleaded Thursday to two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct in Macomb County Circuit Court. A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt, but is treated as such for sentencing.

Detectives said 60-year-old Adrienne Laflamme told a former juvenile detention center student to lie about their sexual relationship, which also included sex with another minor; and drug use because she could lose her job, police said. Palm Bay police arrested Laflamme, a science teacher at the Brevard County Juvenile Detention Center in Sharpes, at her Americana Boulevard home on Wednesday. Her bond is set at $225,000 and she faces 15 counts of unlawful sex with minors and filing a false police report, jail records show.

A 60-year-old Palm Bay teacher was arrested late Wednesday on suspicion of having sex with one of her 17-year-old students, police said. The boy's mother complained that Adrienne Laflamme, who taught science at the Brevard County Juvenile Detention Center, picked her son up at home and had a four-week relationship with him, investigators said. The two had sex at least 15 times, police said, including one time that also involved another teenage boy. Laflamme, of Palm Bay, lent her car to the boy while she was on vacation but reported it stolen after a co-worker told her she was being...

A female special education teacher and sponsor of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes club at a middle school in Alabama has been charged with having sex with at least eight high school students between the ages of 15 and 19. Julie Pritchett, 34, is facing two counts of second-degree sodomy and one count of second-degree sexual abuse of two boys younger than 16 years old, the Birmingham News reported. The incidents allegedly took place between February and April. Pritchett is not facing additional charges for having sex with the other six boys because the remaining incidents involved students who are...

A 24-year-old English teacher at Atlantic High School in Delray Beach resigned amid an investigation into a possible sexual relationship with a graduating senior, authorities said. Heather March submitted her resignation letter on May 28, 12 days after the school district opened an investigation based on information from another student, according to Palm Beach County School District documents. News of March's resignation follows a series of teacher-student sex scandals at Santaluces High School. Revelations emerged earlier this week that teacher Natalie Fraxedas, 23, was fired after admitting she had sex with an 18-year-old student.

A missing 14-year-old student and his female teacher both have been found safe — he in a Hamburg mall, she found sleeping in her car in Springville.

A high school science teacher in North Carolina has been arrested and is facing charges of sexually assaulting a student nine times. Shebana Rajput, 35, a biology and physical science instructor since August 2005 at Jones Senior High School in Trenton, N.C., resigned her position May 21 – just two days before she was arrested in her home for alleged sexual conduct with a 17-year-old student, according to WNCT-TV. Rajput is just the latest instructor to make WND's big list of American teachers accused or convicted of having sexual relations with students. Sheriff's officials say she had sexual relations with...

arrested on charges of having sex with four teenage boys, two of whom were her students, was warned by school officials to never be alone in a classroom with "any male students," Local 6 News reported on Friday. Danielle Jones, 32, was in court on Friday, a day after the Stambaugh (Auburndale) Middle School sixth-grade science teacher was arrested on suspicion of having sex with two of her students, ages 14 and 15, and their two 16-year-old cousins. The school principal sent Jones a letter on Jan. 23 -- about six months after the alleged sex took place -- after...

A female teacher accused of having a year-long sexual relationship with one of her underage male students surrendered to Margate police on Friday morning. Margate Police say that Christine Jouini, 38, who teaches the 11th and 12th grade at The Center Academy, a private school in Coral Springs, was charged with three counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor. Margate Police spokesman Detective Chip Kolenda said the illicit affair was exposed after the former student, who has since graduated and has turned 18, recently confessed the activity to another teacher at the school. The former student said that between...

AUBURNDALE | At Stambaugh Middle School, Danielle Jones was considered a hardworking and successful teacher, but her friendships with some of the boys at the Auburndale school made her bosses nervous. Her principal ordered Jones to stop having "flirtatious'' conversations and to never be alone with male students. On Thursday, the sixth-grade science teacher was arrested and charged with having sex with four teenage boys, including two former students. Jones, 32, was charged with two counts of lewd or lascivious battery and two counts of unlawful sexual activity with minors. She was held without bail at the Polk County Jail....

Former Loveland Teacher Sentenced For Sex AssaultMay 28, 2008 3:37 pm US/Mountain FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) A former social studies teacher at a Loveland middle school is being ordered to spend one year behind bars and 10 years on probation for sexually assaulting an underage girl. Larimer County District Judge James Hiatt handed down the sentence Tuesday to 42-year-old Michael Gaylor. The former Walt Clark Middle School teacher apologized in court, saying he took advantage of his position without any regard for the girl. He said he took the victim's innocence, and called his former students victims, saying they'll "forever...

INDIANAPOLIS -- A high school teacher was arrested and suspended after allegations of sex with a student surfaced this week. A 15-year-old male student at The Renaissance School in Warren Township told police that he had sex with Sheila Vazquez during a "lunch" outing during school hours, police said. The incident is alleged to have happened on May 1 following several months of conversation that included sexual innuendo, the student told police. According to a police report, the student indicated that the conversations began innocently in February when he told her that he was bored in school. The student told...

<p>TAMPA, Fla. -- Documents obtained by a Tampa television station reveal many new details in the case against a school teacher accused of having sex with multiple teenage students.</p> <p>Stephanie Ragusa, 29, had sexual relationships with four underage boys, investigators said. In the past two months, Ragusa has been arrested and charged three times in connection to two of the cases, Tampa Bay FOX affiliate WTVT reported.</p>

NORTH WALES, Pa. - May 1, 2008 (WPVI) -- A teacher's aide from North Wales finds herself at the center of a scandal. Michele Zulkowsky, 28, was arrested for allegedly carrying on an inappropriate relationship with a 10th grade boy at her school. Zulkowsky is a teacher's aide at North Penn High School in Lansdale, Montgomery County. She is charged with corruption of a minor and endangering the welfare of children.

MAGNOLIA -- Police say the motives of a teacher accused of taking three youngsters to motels to engage in sex in a nearby town aren't known. Donna Lou Sanders, 46, of Magnolia, was released on $100,000 bond Friday. She is charged with 12 counts of permitting abuse of a minor, and 10 counts of rape. Columbia County deputy prosecutor David Butler said she is being treated at a private mental health center. Chief Robert Gorum said Sanders told investigators on Wednesday, the day she was arrested, that she committed all of the crimes of which she is being accused. Sanders,...

A former Florida teacher already arrested twice for allegedly having sex with two of her students has reportedly scored a hat trick, after police say she again had sex with a previous victim. Stephanie Ragusa, 29, of Tampa was taken into custody yesterday shortly after Hillsborough County detectives saw her exiting the home of the 16-year old boy. It's Ragusa's third arrest since last month on similar sex charges. "She's in need of help," sheriff's Lt. Fred Asteasuainzarra told the Tampa Tribune. Her arrest affidavit indicates she drove to the boy's home in her boyfriend's pickup, saying she wanted to...

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY -- Stephanie Ragusa, a teacher accused of having sex with two of her students, has been arrested again. The 28-year-old was arrested and booked into Orient Road Jail Monday afternoon on similar charges. Ragusa was first arrested on March 13th, for having sex with a 14-year-old boy. She was arrested again, in April, for having sex with another student. Ragusa was a teacher at Davidson Middle School, in Tampa. Ragusa was charged last month after an investigation revealed that she had sex with a 15-year-old student while she was a teacher at Davidsen Middle School between October 2006...

Benson, N.C. — A teacher at West Johnston High School has been suspended following allegations that she exposed herself to students. Johnston County Schools spokeswoman Crystal Roberts declined to identify the teacher but said the school system is investigating the claim and taking it seriously.

HOUSTON -- A second charge of sexual abuse of a child was levied against a Spring ISD high school teacher after officials say a second student relationship came to light after the first was revealed. Westfield High School teacher Shannon Hrozek, 42, made her first appearance Thursday after she was charged with sexual abuse of a child in January. It was then when officials determined Hrozek engaged in sexual activity with another student. Court documents released in January say Hrozek was caught performing oral sex on a 16-year-old. The student told officials Hrozek asked him to come to her classroom...

APRIL 3--A Wisconsin woman who was charged two weeks ago with having sex with a teenage boy was arrested again yesterday when cops went to her residence and found her there with the child. Jaime Foss, 31, was immediately jailed for violating bail terms imposed after she was charged March 19 with three counts of sexual assault of a child. Foss, who was nabbed shortly before she was due in court on the original charges, is pictured in the below mug shots, which were snapped after yesterday's bust and her initial arrest. As part of her bail package, Foss was...

TAMPA - Teacher-turned-sex-offender Debra Lafave gets to spend her final three months of house arrest on probation instead. A judge ordered Tuesday that the 27-year-old former middle school teacher will be released from house arrest on July 11. She'll serve straight probation instead, which is less restrictive and doesn't require her to wear a monitoring bracelet. She was sentenced in November 2005 to three years' house arrest and seven years of probation for having sex with a 14-year-old student. Prosecutor Mike Sinacore objects to Tuesday's decision. He says the victim's family objects, too.

"A teenage student in possession of sexually explicit photos of his Swedish school teacher claims the woman was trying to seduce him, reports the Göteborgs Tidning (GT) newspaper. The photos, which depict the teacher in sexually provocative positions, have now been circulated to several students at a school in Kungsbacka outside of Gothenburg, landing the teacher at the centre of a school-wide sex scandal. The woman denies accusations that she sent the photos to the student or that she was trying to seduce him, claiming that the boy could have easily downloaded the pictures himself."

TAMPA -- Before a Davidsen Middle School teacher started a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old student, she told the boy she could help him overcome his shyness, according to a new court filing. When teacher Stephanie Ragusa, 28, left, broke her foot and was confined to a wheel chair, the boy was assigned to escort her around the school, detectives wrote in their request for a search warrant filed in Hillsborough Circuit Court. Ragusa told the boy when they got into the elevator that she noticed he was "shy and she could break him of that," the warrant states. Then,...

When it comes to teachers and students, there is no such thing as consensual sex, experts said yesterday. The power differential is too exploitative in those sexual encounters, said Charol Shakeshaft, a former Hofstra University professor who now teaches educational leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University and is an expert on sexual abuse in schools. "It's a violation of trust and professional boundaries," Shakeshaft said of the March 20 encounter Nassau police say happened between Heather Kennedy, 25, a math teacher at Wantagh High School, and a 16-year-old boy who is a student at the school. Kennedy was arraigned yesterday on...

NEW YORK - A Long Island high school math teacher who police say was highly regarded by her bosses now faces rape charges for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old student. Heather Kennedy, 25, was arrested and arraigned for allegedly having sexual intercourse on March 20 with a 16-year-old male student in Massapequa. Kennedy is being held on $35,000 bail. She is being charged with third-degree rape and endangering the welfare of a child, authorities said. Police said Kennedy is a math teacher at Wantagh High School. Police said she was tutoring the boy in his Massapequa home when the...

TAMPA, Fla. -- In the past two weeks, three female teachers have been arrested in the Tampa, Fla., area, accused of having sex with male students. First came the arrest of a middle school math teacher, Stephanie Ragusa, 28. She was charged with having sex with a 14-year-old, authorities said. Investigators monitored phone calls between teacher and student in which Ragusa allegedly acknowledged having sex with the boy. Last Thursday, high school honors English teacher Mary Jo Spack, 45, also was arrested. She is accused of meeting a 17- and an 18-year-old student at a liquor store and leading them...

NEW TAMPA -- Mary Jo Spack. Married 13 years, mother of four kids. At 38, she graduated USF's School of Education with honors, and became an Honors English Teacher herself at Freedom High in Tampa. By all accounts, a teacher's teacher. "Excellent teacher, spotless record," said Hillsborough District spokeswoman Linda Cobbe. "All the evaluations I saw she had the highest marks you can give." A perfect record that's now tainted. Tampa Police say Spack had sex with a 17-year-old male student in the shower of a Howard Johnson motel room while four other students listened in. Police say she also...

NEW PORT RICHEY – If you thought twice in three weeks was enough, think again. Late Monday, Pasco County officials said a 40-year-old substitute teacher has been charged with having sex with an underage male student. Deputies say Lisa Robyn Marinelli is charged with sexual battery on a minor. Marinelli is a substitute teacher with the Pasco County school district, and deputies say the boy is a student at Mitchell High School. According to investigators, they had been keeping an eye on her since back in February, when the boy's father reported seeing his son get out of the teacher's...

TAMPA — "Sex," "teacher" and "student" meet again. A 45-year-old high school honors teacher was arrested Thursday, accused of having sex with a 17-year-old boy. Police say Freedom High School English teacher Mary Jo Spack, 45, met two male students at a liquor store last Friday, then took them to a Tampa motel, where she had sex with one of them in the shower as four other students overheard in the next room. Spack's arrest, police said, was spurred by rumors at the school. The boy's boasting about having had sex with a teacher eventually caught the attention of a...

TAMPA - Mary Jo Spack met two Freedom High School students March 14 and took them to a liquor store, police said Thursday. Spack, an honors English teacher at Freedom, then drove the students, ages 17 and 18, to a Howard Johnson motel on Fowler Avenue where they drank alcohol together, an arrest report states. "Those kids were texting some friends that they were going to have a party at this motel," police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said. Three other students joined them in the motel room, McElroy said. The 17-year-old told police he had sex with Spack in the shower....

A female teacher at a St. Francis school pleaded not guilty Thursday to sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy. Kelly M. Sweet, 26, of Milwaukee is charged with one count of second-degree sexual assault of a child, a felony. Sweet was an eighth-grade teacher at Deer Creek Intermediate School, according to the school's Web site. According to a criminal complaint, the boy was sitting on a sofa watching a movie at Sweet's apartment March 9 while Sweet, who was lying on the sofa, rested her head on his lap. She began kissing him and initiated sexual contact, the complaint says. The...

Jason Eickmeyer was a 15-year-old sophomore at Hammonton High School in New Jersey the night he said he had sex with his gym teacher. From that moment on, he counted the days until he would be old enough to marry her. Male classmates who heard the rumors would nudge him on the shoulder, he said, and give him a knowing smile. "I got respect," he said. Two years later, after the police came to his house and took his statement against teacher Traci Tapp, Mr. Eickmeyer was shunned and mocked. He became a Jay Leno punch line. Friends would ask...

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY (Bay News 9) -- A Bay area middle school teacher is facing charges after allegedly having sex with a teenager. Stephanie Ragusa was arrested at her home Thursday afternoon. Authorities said she had a relationship with a 15-year-old student at Davidsen Middle School where she used to teach. The victim admitted the relationship to a school resource officer, and said it started in October 2006 and lasted through May 2007. Ragusa was taken to the Hillsborough County Jail were she was booked on five counts of lewd and lascivious battery. She currently works at Martinez Middle School in...

HILLSBORO — A former substitute teacher in the Dunklin School District in Jefferson County will be sentenced next month after pleading guilty of having sex with a 14-year-old student. Teresa Engelbach, 22, of Pevely, pleaded guilty last week to one felony count of second-degree statutory rape and one misdemeanor count of sexual misconduct. She could get up to 7 years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000 on the rape charge, and up to 6 months in prison and a fine of up to $500 on the sexual misconduct charge. Jefferson County Circuit Judge M. Edward Williams set...