Posted on 08/22/2011 11:03:24 AM PDT by Libloather
Bill bans teacher-student flings
By Jo Ciavaglia Staff writer
Updated: 12:16 pm, Mon Aug 22, 2011
She was a 17-year-old student. He was a 43-year-old math teacher. When their romance was revealed in 2009, many called it morally and ethically wrong.
**SNIP**
Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman, whose office initiated the push for the bill to make student-teacher sexual relationships a felony, says the crimes happen frequently, and they do “enormous” damage to young people.
Ferman believes the bill would provide a strong deterrent for school employees.
“When misdeeds have no consequence, there is not disincentive to act. What we have seen over many years there is no consequence to any significance,” Ferman said. “I’m hoping we never have to use it.”
School employees who pursue romances with students are usually aware of the age of consent, and some will start “grooming” students before their 16th birthdays to earn their trust, Bucks County prosecutor Jennifer Schorn said.
“That is what is most disturbing,” she added.
During the 2005 trial of former Pennridge High School gym teacher David Heath, it was revealed that he had waited until shortly after the girl’s 16th birthday to start a sexual relationship because he knew the age of consent, said Schorn, who prosecuted the case.
Hawkins, the Council Rock High School South teacher, did the same thing, discussing the age of consent with his teenage lover, according to court records. The girl later told police Hawkins did Internet research to find out the legal age of sexual consent.
“To me that is what really showed me how manipulative he was,” said Schorn, who also prosecuted Hawkins. “He knew there was a gray area.”
(Excerpt) Read more at phillyburbs.com ...
Sad to think we need this. But ever since Mary Kay basically got away with it these cases have been exploding.
At one point not that long ago a relationship between a teen student and her teacher in PA was upheld by a court as being a common law marriage! I guess our laws have not caught up with our sick reality.
This is why government cannot do public school because it invariably becomes a fraud and rife with favoritism.
Try that in the private sphere and see how the school is going to fare if the contracts are broken.
GOVERNMENT SERVICE IS FRAUD
Power dynamic can also be broken down into student of particular teacher, versus student in school but not of particular teacher.
If age of consent has been reached, and student is not in any of teachers classes, then "bans" or "restrictions" are going to have a hard time being defended.
Bogart (age 45) and Bacall (age 19):
Oh, and did we forget that Lenin was the son of a school dean and teacher?
Public Education and communist leninism, and the f@gotry big daddy institution rolls on its fraud education.
“... Mary Kay basically got away with it...”
First of all, the kid HAD NOT reached the age of consent.
Anyway, serving seven years in prison doesn’t seem to me like getting away with it.
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