Teacher Smackdown

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.

Not only was a teacher having sex with one of her special ed students, but seems that the school was trying to cover up a teacher’s bad behavior…or just handled it very, very badly.

Shatavia Kendricks, 15, told the assistant principal that Butler was having sex with a student outside of school. Kendricks told him about the teachers’ behavior inside the classroom, that Butler let the boy hold her cell phone and the keys to her car. She also told him that Butler let boys look up inappropriate websites. (She also told her mother who urged her to report this to the assistant principal. She did - twice.)

Instead of calling the police, the principal suspended the girl for seven days for spreading rumors.

According to the school district, the principal did look into the allegations against Butler. He talked to the young man and Butler, who both denied the charges and said it was a nasty rumor. (Of course they did - duh!) The school says there wasn’t any evidence that anything had occurred. But others believe that the school resource officer should have been told so the police could investigate the charges.

Butler is suspended with pay and free on $7,500 bail.

And now the attorney who represents families of both the victim of the sexual assault and the student who was suspended, has filed papers announcing his intention to sue the school district.

I hate to see everyone “lawyering up.” Yet, in this case I feel it’s justified - both kids were abused by people who are supposed to protect them.

According to the lawyer, Darryl Rouson, the young man was “battered” by this teacher. He says the boy is confused and in pain. Plus he doesn’t understand what his future is in the school system. Kendricks’s mom says that kids now make fun of her, and that she has fallen behind in school after her suspension. The lawyer wants conciliation, counseling, correction, and compensation for both kids.