Teacher Smackdown

Driving my son to school the other morning, I heard Louis & Floorwax, the morning radio show personalities on 103.5 FM in Denver discussing the double standard when it comes to female vs. male teachers getting the smackdown by the courts when they’ve sexually abused kids.

Women do get lighter sentences for having sex with teenage male students than do male teachers having sex with male students. Yet it’s beginning to change, especially with all the high profile cases we’ve been seeing in the news lately. The general public and court judges are beginning to realize that there is something wrong and damaging when a female teacher preys on a young man.

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In Marianna, Florida, Marianna High School wrestling coach and teacher, Stuart Mahler, may be charged with two counts of child abuse. The sherrif’s office received complaints via the Department of Children and Families abuse hotline. Mahler, who taught physical education and driver’s education, was accused of threatening and causing injury to some students.

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In Maryland, the Howard County Board of Education fired Joseph Samuel Ellis, 26, a Glenelg High School teacher accused of sexually abusing two female students. The board is also in the process of terminating two other teachers charged with sexual offenses - River Hill High School science teacher Alan Beier and Marriotts Ridge High School special education teacher Kirsten Kinley.

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In Arizona, Paradise Valley High School teacher and cheerleading coach Jennifer Diane Mally is accused of having sex 29 times with a 16-year-old student.

The parents of a student contacted the school about the affair. School officials then called police. The sex occured at her home, the student’s home, and in her car and began just after the school year started.

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In Alabama, Victor LaBaron Payne, 36, was convicted on charges of second-degree rape, sexual abuse and enticing a minor for immoral purposes last month. However, new charges filed by a second victim include rape in the first and second degrees, sexual abuse in the first and second degrees, and enticement of a child for immoral purposes.

Payne already faces up to 31 years on the first case. Now he’s looking at life in prison if he’s convicted in the second one. Not only that, but there is a third case pending against the former Escambia County Middle School teacher and coach.

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Steven Mitchell, 32, of Pineville, Arkansas, faces 12 counts involving sexual misconduct with students. He pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he took students across state lines to engage in sexual acts.

Mitchell, an agricultural teacher at Melbourne High School from 2002 to 2004, took seven underage children to Georgia, Kentucky, and Texas. On these trips he either touched them or encouraged them to expose themselves.

Ewwwwwww….

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Teacher Andrew Joseph Barnes, 26, an English teacher and track coach pleaded guilty to one felony count of using a minor for a prohibited act and two misdemeanor counts of indecent exposure.

The charges involved three 17-year-old female students from South Hills High School in West Covina, California.

Barnes was sentenced two-year state prison term and ordered to register as a sex offender. The felony charge involved using a minor in a photograph, while the misdemeanor charges involved photos that were found on his computer.

What always surprises me is that these guys don’t think they’ll get caught. For goodness sake, there’s hard evidence - photographs - on your computer. Duh!

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Andrew Joseph Barnes, South Hills High School, sex offender, indecent exposure, photographs, child abuse, sexual abuse

Akela J. Dillon, the Neuqua Valley High School teacher who slapped a 16-year-old black student for dating a white one, was found guilty of a misdemeanor battery charge. The incident was caught on video.

She’ll get a year of court supervision and was rdered to undergo anger-management counseling, pay $250 in fines and court fees, and avoid contact with the student.

Dillon, a first-year teacher at the high school, was immediately removed from the building following the incident. In March, she turned in a letter of resignation to be effective at the end of the school year, but was fired after her conviction.

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Akela J. Dillon, Neuqua Valley High School, hitting student, battery, child abuse

In Phillipsburg, New Jersey, social studies teacher Jennifer A. Ostile, 30, was arrested for stealing a dose of a student’s prescription painkiller from the nurse’s office at Phillipsburg High School.

Two school nurses noticed that a student’s bottle of Endocet was four pills short during a routine daily inventory of student medications. (Endocet is similar to Percocet.)

Nurses told police Ostile came to their office to get a bottle of a gel for her neck. One of the nurses heard a filing cabinet open in the room Ostile was in. When she looked in the office, she saw Ostile drop a prescription bottle to the floor. When the nurses went to the filing cabinet, they found another pill missing from the student’s Endocet bottle.

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