[wakegirl]

up until about a week ago i thought that teachers who had relationships with their students were a breed of person i would never relate to. recent events have made me question that rationale. i dated a guy whose cousin was in prison for a sexual assualt of a minor by a person in a position of trust, and at family gatherings i would always end up talking to her for a few minutes. from the outside she appeared very normal (or as normal as a stranger can seem) but the more she talked the more i could tell that there was something different in the way she interpreted things. for instance when she talked about the relationship it often sounded like a teenager talking about their first boyfriend/girlfriend. it was as if the morals and ethics that make people good community members were missing or that she almost felt like she could justify the relationship. dont get me wrong as someone who spent time in the realm of law enforcement i understand that their are people out there who cannot follow the rules of society and their attemps to justify those actions just provide more evidence of the strange beliefs that exist within some.
about a week ago a kid i went to high school with, a kid i was a senior buddy to when he was a freshman was arrested for having a sexual relationship with a student. this kid was a good kid, a little shy maybe, but my parents were friends with his parents so we spent a fair amount of time together and he always seemed so normal. he married his highschool girl friend (the only girl he has ever dated), had 2 kids. the random or even more random aspect to the story is that he went to college and studied theology, and then attended the seminary. he was teaching bible studies at a christian school.
i keep thinking back to all of the time i spent with him and cant think of anything that should have raised alarms (not for this behavior specificly, but anything that made him stand out). i just cant imagine how this great kid who had done so well in the early stages of adult life could have gone so wrong.
it is no wonder why so many parents are choosing to home school their children. i know there are problem personalities in every profession but it seems like at this point in time, in the wake of the priest scandels that caused so much damage, teaching seems to have fallen into the same frightening hole.
if anyone on the site is in the teaching profession or has a loved on in the profession please dont take offense it is not my point to paint everyone within a profession with the same brush, there are good and bad in every work environment, i am just baffled by the current trend. the fact that if i had children this kid i grew up with would have been my first choice as a teacher or coach (and for many kids in his classroom their parents felt the exact same way) is truly frightening.
sorry i just needed to vent this behavior is disturbing from a distance but it hurts far more when it is so close to home

[theoneRogue420]

When I was in high school way back in 1978 there were two men at my school who used "sex for better grades" as an excuse to molest their female students.

One was a coach of the girls gymnastic team... the other was a biology teacher. I had both teachers. I was given the opportunity, and declined. They had misjudged me badly.

I went to my parents with the news. THEY blew me off, didn't believe me at all. I already had problems with the school staff, so going to them with this would have been futile.

I got a call from my mother about 10 years ago, telling me about their arrests. She was in shock, couldn't believe it had happened. I replied "I can believe it... and if YOU had believed me 30 years ago, imagine all the girls it could have saved from the same fate." She didn't even remember the situation until I reminded her!

Parents bear some of the blame too. If they notice behavioral changes in their teens, they shouldn't chalk it up to "teen angst". They should talk to their teens, gain their trust, have a real relationship. Then that teen will be able to tell you things of this nature, secure in the knowledge that you will believe and act accordingly.

On a personal note, I think all serious sex offenders should be turned into eunuchs. But lets not forget that in most states an 18 year old man can be classified a sex offender if he has relations with a 16 year old. It doesn't matter if they had been a couple since they were 16 and 14! Also, in some states, if you urinate in public and a woman sees and reports it, it can be classified a sex offense.

We need to be more careful with that label, IMO. Some don't really deserve it, yet they are to be punished for life with that stigma.

NO, I know no one who has been through this... or at least no one I would associate with. I did find out the maintenance man for the apt building I lived in once was a level two offender, and had keys to apts where there were many latch-key kids! I reported it to the landlord, as it is illegal in that state for him to hire the guy. I told the landlord if he he did not fire the guy and report him to his probation officer, I would do it. But then the landlord would look very bad and have committed an offense. He should have done a background check on someone he entrusted with master keys. Needless to say, my request was complied with immediately.. he truly had no knowledge of the guys past, I believed him.

Know the laws of your state and check the gov'ts website for registered sex offenders in your area. The more you know, the more you can do.

[wakegirl]

rogue
i totally agree with you that there are flaws in the sex offender registry system. the urination in public thing is awful...if only because depending on the person that walks by the charge can significantly differ...problem. i think that in the case of juvenile relationship cases many states have changed the requirements. for instance a four year gap is needed. or the presence of a prior relationship negates the claim. they are trying to get rid of the snap response action...parents finding their daughter and her boyfriend together and pressing charges when they refuse to call it off. there was a case in texas maybe (im not sure) where a football player who had a scholarship to college and was by all accounts a good kid was charged with statitory rape when the girlfriends parents found out. 17 at the time of arrest (she was 15) he was senteced to 18 years and required to register...talk about destroyed life.
i think there should be a juvenile resolution system that wont carry over to adulthood if the two parties are consenting. in some states the consenting age is 13. how on earth is the legal system supposed to lock up kids of that age for adult time for consented behavior.
that said teachers most definetly need to be held accountable when they take advantage of students. schools probably need to set up an anynomous comment system because it seems like most teachers who play this game are repeat offenders