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Are More Teachers Crossing The Line?
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Published: March 22, 2008
Updated: 03/22/2008 01:11 am
TAMPA - The headlines are enough to make a parent shudder:
"Teacher, Boy Had Affair, Officials Say." "Another Educator Facing Sex Charges."
In the past week, two Hillsborough County public schoolteachers, former Davidsen Middle School math teacher Stephanie Ragusa and Freedom High English teacher Mary Jo Spack, were arrested and charged with having unlawful sex with underage students.
Since 2005, at least 10 schoolteachers in Hillsborough and neighboring counties have been arrested on similar charges.
Are we facing an epidemic?
National experts on the subject say they don't think so.
Most seem to agree, though, that reporting of such crimes is on the rise, and they attribute it to a number of things. In the wake of the sexual abuse scandals that shook the Catholic Church, the once-taboo subject of challenging trusted authority figures' relationships with underage children is far less taboo.
It's easier to question a priest's relationship with a minor, and it's OK to challenge a schoolteacher, too.
The price the Catholic Church paid in the wake of those scandals also is having the effect of motivating more schools to actively seek prosecution of teachers who stray, says David Finkelhor, a University of New Hampshire sociology professor and director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center.
"I'm doubtful that there's an epidemic going on," Finkelhor said. "I do think there's more reporting. One of the things that's changed is the very large liability lawsuits that happened in the wake of the priest abuse stuff. I think that has sensitized schools to the liability that they themselves may incur if they don't really take a very proactive stance with regard to these things.
"There was, perhaps, more in the past, a tendency of them to try and keep it under wraps. Get rid of the teacher. Negotiate something out, but not allow it to get public."
No more. Particularly since the nationally publicized case of Greco Middle School teacher Debra Lafave in 2005, the local cases against teachers charged with having sex with students have multiplied. In her case, the 14-year-old boy's aunt found out and told his mother. The mother told the police.
It's more than just parents reporting, though. Schoolmates of the victims are going to school officials. Other teachers are repeating charges.
The underage victims themselves, often the most reluctant to report, also are coming forward.
That was the case last year of a 16-year-old girl who went straight to a school dean at Bartow High School to say math teacher Isaac Tillis had offered her an "A" if she performed oral sex on him. Police arrested Tillis the next day after they said he repeated the offer to her while she recorded it with a hidden listening device.
Reporting On The Upswing
"There's definitely an increase in the reporting of these crimes," said Pam Bondi, spokeswoman for the Hillsborough State Attorney's Office. "We have greater police work. We have children willing to come forward, but what we can't determine is whether it's been going on unreported" in the past.
Charol Shakeshaft, chairwoman of Educational Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University, thinks many such crimes often go unreported. She conducted a 2004 nationwide study for the U.S. Department of Education. It found 7 percent of students between kindergarten and graduation from high school reported being the target of physical sexual exploitation by an adult who works in a school.
"Only about 9 percent of those kids actually report their abuse," Shakeshaft said. "Ninety to 91 percent of cases never get to the police."
Shakeshaft, however, thinks that such crimes are being reported more. As cases are more widely publicized in the media, she said, the awareness grows among parents that there are many people who sexually exploit children "and that's more likely to be true."
Some of it is getting reported because the digital rumor mill is churning out information so much faster than in the past. With many students now carrying cell phones, gossip about teacher trysts with students spreads rapidly.
After Spack's arrest, administration officials said students were text-messaging each other about the party at a motel room where Spack is accused of taking two students and having sex with one of them. Another teacher heard the rumors and reported them to administrators.
In 2006, Pasco Middle School band teacher Michael Black's sexual encounters with a 14-year-old student were discovered by her parents, thanks to the multiple calls he made to the girl's cell phone at all hours of day and night.
E-mail, Cell Phones Leave Digital Clues
The digital age has made prosecution of such crimes much easier, said Nan Stein, a senior research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women who has served as an expert witness in lawsuits concerning child sex abuse in schools.
She equates it to former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who resigned recently after prosecutors uncovered his plans to meet a prostitute on wiretaps and in text messages.
"This is like Eliot Spitzer. If you put it in an e-mail, you're marked forever," Stein said. "The fact that there's e-mails or photos or text messages, we have a chain of evidence. So we have a lot of stupidity mixed with bravado with this documentation. I think we have a great pathetic example of Eliot Spitzer and what we see is children and teachers mimicking that kind of behavior."
In most of the recent cases locally where teachers have been charged with soliciting sex or having sex with underage students, the teachers have been women, which seems to contradict the statistics.
Shakeshaft's 2004 study found that men were six times more likely than women to sexually exploit students in school. However, of the 10 local cases, just three of the accused teachers were men.
Does that make the Tampa Bay area cases an anomaly?
Shakeshaft doesn't think so. She thinks that so many more women have been arrested than men because, simply, there are far more female teachers than male teachers.
"Seventy-five percent of schools' adult population is female and 25 percent is male," she said. "An individual male is more likely to be an exploiter, but because there are three times as many women as men in schools, they account for a large percentage of the abuse."
Reporter Karen Branch-Brioso can be reached at (813) 259-7815 or kbranch-brioso@tampatrib.com.
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Reader Comments
Posted by ( c_jay ) on March 22, 2008 at 3:30 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
As some previous posts have already noted, some of these boys do not necessarily consider having sex with a "hot teach" 'abuse'.
Instead they brag about it (I wouldn't exactly brag if I had been abused, know what I mean?).
Consequently, I am not sure 'abuse' is the right terminology. I don't see these teenagers needing counseling. After all - you can't rape the will on a guy...
The sexual activity is now being reported as opposed to in the 'old days' when it wasn't. Part of that might possibly have to do with the reputation a teacher used to enjoy in the 'old days' wherein the teacher was someone society looked up to.
As a result, this type of 'disgraceful' activity wasn't exactly advertised back then.
Teachers no longer get the same recognition or respect they used to (mind you, rightfully so with some).
Additionally in today's day and age teachers are expected to do the job that some parents failed to do on the homefront (i.e. teaching discipline, social skills, manners, etc.).
And then we wonder why we have to have law enforcement on school premises with everyone being so busy blaming everyone else for their own problems and issues and being such a sue-happy society...
There, several issues on this post.
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Posted by ( motorist ) on March 22, 2008 at 7:01 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
c_jay, So true.....
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Posted by ( Oops ) on March 22, 2008 at 7:17 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
The only safe way to school your kids is to homeschool them. Then you can prevent predatory pedophiles from having access to your children. Today's school system (read "social experiment gone wrong") is little more than a daycare service masquerading as education. What a waste of my tax dollars!
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Posted by ( ad ) on March 22, 2008 at 8:49 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
"C_Jay" you state a good case for the reality of the situation. I am not alone in hearing about the Middle School children having sex among themselves and the belief oral sex is not "having sex". At the age these kids are having teacher / child sex where is the concept of the kid saying NO. They sure can say no to anything else. They are not molested, they just opened their mouth to someone and that someone else was jealous and told someone. An old story and those not wanting to hear it are closed minded and self righteous. They should be handling the situation and have already established solid lines of communication before it happens and be responsible, not after the fact.
"Oops", home school is not the answer. It is important for the child to have interaction with others not found in home schooling. The answer is not the supervised "play days" organized by the parents with only the "right kind of children" in the "right places". That certainly places the child on the "right" and we see where that has led us.
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Posted by ( mr_hanky ) on March 22, 2008 at 9:34 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
I remember a student/teacher incident from middle school in the early 80's. One of our teachers got a student of his pregnant. I don't know how long their affair had been going on before that because they kept it VERY quiet. Unfortunately for him, his wife was a teacher at the same school, and yes, she was furious and humiliated when the truth came to light. They ended up getting divorced - surprise - and he married the student a couple of years later. He was never prosecuted for this but he was fired. And the student in question was ostracized for doing it with a teacher - there was no bragging going on about it back then. She ended up being treated like she had the Plague or something. Then again, so did he...
So this kind of thing has been going on for quite some time. It was just kept hush-hush to protect the reputation of the school. And I remember that she certainly didn't act like a victim. That is, she didn't act like one until her social life came to a screeching halt. I guess she forgot that that kind of thing happens when you become a teenaged mother. It's all fun and games until you lose an eye or someone gets knocked up... I don't know how they can prevent this from happening ever again, but they need to quit thinking of all of these kids as victims. Although some of them probably are, a lot of them are definitely not. They know what they're doing. Their parents just don't want to believe that their "little baby boy/girl" could NEVER do anything like that... Wake up, people! It's not always just the teacher at fault.
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Posted by ( bgraham309 ) on March 22, 2008 at 10:18 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
There is no epidemic. We simply hear about it more. Lets face it, these stories get your attention and make you read that paper or and watch that news broadcast. 35 years ago in junior high the female coaches were lesbians. Not a crime. But one was a voyeur. She always watched the girls as they showered. She did no more than watch and consequently nothing was ever done and no news story. In high school one male coach was young and good looking. He was getting lucky with more girls than the entire football team combined. The summer after graduation my female art teacher tried to pick me up. I guess she thought I was 18. I was 17. No epidemic just the same old thing
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Posted by ( RedTide ) on March 22, 2008 at 10:38 a.m.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Posted by ( dogworld ) on March 22, 2008 at 10:52 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
How do you know boys brag about it, c-jay? And why is it not abuse? Later they may feel shame and worry because it's illegal, or guilt for having cooperated with a teacher who is punished.
This macho attitude that all boys want to have sex with teachers is ridiculous.
It's just as nasty when a female teacher molests a male as when a man does it to a female. When the storm of news stories and anger hits the boy of that age is going to feel something bad inside himself.
You're saying that he's getting sex and that's paramount. Well, if it were a girl, you could say the same thing. It's not sex, it's rape and child abuse. Period.
And it's still a criminal act indulged in by teachers who are entrusted with the welfare of your kids.
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Posted by ( ad ) on March 22, 2008 at 3:25 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
"dogworld" at what point does a 14+ year old boy or girl lose not only their ability to run away, but just say "NO". The "children" today know what is going to happen, prior to, during and when they are standing there with their clothes on a chair and it is not their house.
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Posted by ( eloquentmind ) on March 22, 2008 at 6:45 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
It is horrible that people take advantage of their position and put students in positions where sexual behavior is acceptable or even a topic. However, I am a young teacher who puts my students’ overall wellbeing first everyday. I am ethical, moral, and hard working, and it kills me that the public and the media act like it is all teachers that are despicable and corrupt. I truly went into this position as a higher-calling, and it breaks me to know people view me and my colleagues as dirt. For every bad teacher, there are dozens of good ones.
The public should understand that the more and more disrespect and contempt that they put on teachers the less likely it is that the truly good ones stay. I know that the negative treatment and assumptions that I suffer under is driving me and other great teachers away ever so quickly.
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Posted by ( mamac ) on March 22, 2008 at 7:08 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
c_jay, motorist and all you who think as these two do - get your head out of the gutter - maybe a FEW boys wish for this but after having worked with young men and women for over 25 years I can tell you without a doubt the NORMAL boy wants to be NORMAL and not be sexually assaulted by some pervert. No matter how pretty she may be or THINK she is.
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Posted by ( dogworld ) on March 22, 2008 at 7:51 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
ad If you've ever been in that position of the abused child, then you would not need to ask such a question.
You act as if there is no emotional whirling going on inside. The teen may even be excited at the moment, or confused or a host of other things he is too immature to understand. if an authority figure seduced you -- even as an adult -- or came in and tyrannized you, believe me you would not be so blase and cool about it.
I don't think your question of impugning that the kid can just walk away has any merit. If you'd ever been molested as a child you would know exactly how easy it is for a predatory adult to succeed.
Even adults who are raped find themselves paralyzed and unable to challenge the rapist. So please don't act as if a kid with a teacher can put up a cool, informed resistance.
You are speculating; listen to someone who has been there.
Teachers, priests, relatives, anyone who molests a kid of either sex ought to be horse whipped.
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Posted by ( LovestoSingAiC ) on March 22, 2008 at 7:59 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
It's never completely the teacher's fault. Even little kids know how to say "No". If you don't believe me, next time you go to the grocery store, watch a mother with a 2-year-old try to tell him/her to do something:)
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