Teacher Smackdown

In South Carolina, Dwight Lawing, 39, was arrested for having inappropriate contact with a 15-year-old student. Lawing is the band teacher at Wallace Elementary/Middle School. He is formally charged with criminal sexual misconduct with a minor, and with dissemination of a harmful material to a minor. (I am guessing that the “harmful material” is either porn, alcohol, or drugs.)

During the past year, the Marlboro County Sheriff’s Office had received several complaints about the teacher. However, they could not move forward with an investigation or arrest since they had no factual information. They finally proceeded after the 15-year-old victim contacted police about what happened to him/her. (The identity of the victim is being hidden because of his/her age, and I don’t want to assume it is a girl. Boys get molested, too.)

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Kelsey Peterson, a 25-year-old single mother and sixth grade math teacher and basketball coach at Lexington Middle School in Nebraska was having a sexual relationship with her former 13-year-old student. According to the boy’s family, the relationship began in 2006 when he was 12-years-old.

A police investigation found affectionate emails and love letters between the two on her school laptop computer. Now Peterson is now facing charges of kidnapping, child abuse and contributing to the delinquency of a minor for kidnapping the boy after leaving Nebraska with him and taking the child to Mexico. If she is found guilty of the federal crime of taking a minor across state lines and over the U.S. border for the purpose of having sex with him, Peterson could get 10 years in prison.

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Here we go again - a young, attractive, blond teacher having sex with a teenage student.

In Washington, Utah, Hurricane High School teacher, Cris Lynn Morris, 29, was arrested and booked into the Purgatory Jail for investigation of five counts of first-degree felony rape stemming from a sexual relationship she was having with one of her teenage male students. Morris was a social science teacher at the school. She also coached the girls’ soccer and track teams.

The 17-year-old student told police he had sex with Morris at her home five times between August and October. He said he met Morris twice in her backyard and twice in her living room.

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In Tampa, Florida, ninth grade Middleton High School special ed teacher, Christina Butler, 33, has been charged with lewd and lascivious battery for having sex with a 15-year-old student.

The relationship was discovered when the victim and his friends were pulled over when driving Butler’s Jeep. Police called Butler to the scene. While they were waiting, one of the passengers told police that the teenage driver was in a sexual relationship with Butler. When she arrived, she told officers that the relationship was platonic. However, she later admitted it was sexual and ‘fessed up to having sex with the student no more than a dozen times.

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In Tennessee, Gallatin High School teacher Holly Hatcher, 25, was charged with statutory rape by an authority figure. She is accused of having sex with a 17-year-old male student at her home in Nashville.

Hatcher admitted having sex with the teenager on six occasions in the last two months. Police said the teenager drove to her home for the sexual encounters. One time, Hatcher and the student went to the Nashville Zoo, and returned to Hatcher’s home for some “hot monkey love.” (Sorry, I couldn’t help the zoo reference.)

Another time the student told his parents that he was at work, but he was with Hatcher. Another time the boy told police he and Hatcher carved pumpkins and then they had sex.

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In Illinois, teacher Jon Andrew White is accused of molesting 11 students nine at Urbana’s Thomas Paine Elementary School and two at Colene Hoose Elementary in Normal. All were second grade girls.

White faces three counts of predatory criminal sexual assault, and 13 counts of aggravated criminal abuse. If convicted of two of the more serious predatory criminal sexual assault counts, White faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

Not only did White molest the children, but schoool officials were slow to remove him from the classroom after parents told them about a “tasting game” White was playing with their children. Parents said that although the principal, superintendent and human resources director were notified of White’s behavior in November of 2005, the second-grade teacher remained in his classroom until January 31, 2006 when police arrested him at work.

(This is horrible and the school district knows it. Maybe that’s why the principal, superintendent and HR director have all retired since the case came to light.)

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UPDATE: To The Associated Press Investigates Sexual Misconduct in US Schools

The list of nationwide Associated Press stories on teacher sexual abuse of students grows:

Chicago - Illinois disciplines 25 teachers in 5-year period for sex offenses

Raleigh, NC - Changes in NC law increased reporting of teacher misconduct and For more than two decades, board attorney watched over teachers

Boston - 60 educators disciplined, more than a third for sexual misconduct

Indianapolis, IN - Indiana had dozens of teacher sexual misconduct cases in 5 years

Seattle - 125 WA teachers punished for sexual misconduct over 5 years

Augusta, Maine - Maine law bars details of why teachers decertified

Las Vegas - Nevada advocate works to expose teachers in sex cases

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UPDATE: to High School Teacher Christy Anne Brown Arrested for Having Sex with Student

In Utah, Christy Brown, 33, a former teacher at Cyprus High School, was convicted of having sex with a 17-year-old boy who was one of her English students. Brown pleaded guilty in August to three felony counts of forcible sexual abuse. She could have gotten up to 15 years in prison for each count. Instead, Brown was sentenced to probation instead of jail.

Brown gets a whopping three years of probation, a $1,850 fine, and sex-offender treatment. The judge also order her not have any unsupervised contact with children under age 16 for the first year of her probation, and permitted Brown to send a card apologizing to the victim and his family.

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Victoria Blevins, 23, a physical education teacher at Monroe Township High School in New Jersey was arrested on charges of sexual assault and official misconduct with an underage female student for a sexual relationship that took place last spring. The victim, a 17-year-old high school student, was not taught by Blevins. The young woman no longer attends the high school.

The girl’s mother notified high school officials of instant messages that she found on a laptop. School officials immediately alerted the police who conducted a joint investigation with the prosectors office.

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In North Carolina, Charles Hadley, 29, a Southwest Guilford High School teacher, was arrested for soliciting sex from a teenager in an online chat room. The formal charges are “soliciting a child by computer.”

The investigation started this summer when detectives suspected Hadley of having inappropriate conversations online. Investigators stepped in and posed as a 15-year-old girl. Hadley fell for the bait hook, line and sinker. General conversation quickly lead to sexual questions. Then Hadley said he was going to try to meet with the teenager, but backed out of the meeting. Even though the visit never took place, the chats gave authorities enough evidence to arrest and charge Hadley.

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Many newspapers across the country are covering the Associated Press’s investigation of sexual misconduct by U.S. school teachers. I have never seen such an extensive amount of articles on this one subject as the AP has asked writers to do stories with local angles. The stories are shocking and you see how victimized these kids are even if the teacher was blond, young and hot.

Also, the major findings by the AP will floor you:

1. A total of 2,570 educators nationwide were punished for sexual misconduct from 2001-2005. This number represents about 25 percent of all educator misconduct cases during that time period.

2. The total number of times an action was taken against a teacher’s license for sexual misconduct was 2,625 (more than 50 teachers lost licenses in more than one state). Licenses were revoked in 1,636 of the cases. They were surrendered in 440 cases, suspended in 376 cases, and denied in 108 cases. Other punishments were handed out in the remainder of the cases.

3. Students were clearly identified as victims in at least 1,467 of the sexual misconduct cases. The victim was a young person, a category including students, unidentified youths, family members and neighbors, in at least 1,801 of the cases.

4. Educators made physical contact in 72 percent of the cases in which the victims were youths. The remainder were cases that did not involve physical contact, including verbal sexual harassment and other offenses.

5. There were criminal convictions in at least 1,390, or 53 percent, of the cases. ONLY 53%! That is far too low.

6. Nearly nine out of 10 of the educators punished for sexual misconduct were male. So much for all the hoopla about the epidemic of female teachers having sex with their teenage (mostly) male students.

7. At least 446 of the cases that the AP investigated involved educators who had multiple victims. This means they were probably repeat offenders over a long period of time or at various schools.

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In Hartford, Connecticut, Matthew Glasser agreed to plead guilty to having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old Northwest Catholic High School student. Taking a plea means that the former music teacher will avoid serving prison time.

Glasser was convicted on charges of tampering with a witness. (Must be why the victim refused to testify in the case). He is also convicted four counts of sexual assault in the fourth-degree. He gets a seven-year suspended sentence and five years of probation.

Best of all, Glasser must register with the state as a sex offender. This means he won’t be working in any capacity with kids again. Good.

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In Livermore, California, police arrested gymnastics instructor, Carlos Amaro (a.k.a. Julian Amaro) on suspicion of molesting one of his underage male students.

Amaro, 25, is a national acrobatic gymnastics champion and the owner and head instructor at West Coast Acrobatics. He previously worked as an instructor for Gymfinity Gymnastics. Both studios are in Livermore.

He has been competing nationally since 1997. In 2005, he finished first in the National Team Trials, and earned him and his partner a spot on the U.S. national team.

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Another young, blond, attractive teacher gone bad. (And another story for reader Brian.)

In Tucson, Arizona, Rebecca Lee Kelley, 24, a former teacher at Salpointe Catholic High School pleaded guilty to one count of failure to report a reportable offense. (Huh, what kind of wacky law speak is that?). She also pleaded guilty to three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Kelley was an English teacher at the private high school.

Kelley was originally was indicted on four counts of sexual conduct with a minor under 18. This happened last spring after administrators at Salpointe reported her to police when they learned she was having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old male student. She was allowed to quit her job at that time.

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(This post is dedicated to longtime reader and frequent commentator, Brian, who loves this kind of shit.)

Here we go again - a young, nice looking female teacher having an affair with a teenaged male student. What are these women thinking?

In La Mesa, California, Helix High School band director and music teacher Jessica Ashley Kahal, 22, was arrested on suspicion of having sex with a 17-year-old student. She was booked into Las Colinas Detention Facility in Santee on two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

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