DALLAS — The overwhelming reaction to the recent arrest of three North Texas schoolteachers — and the investigation of a fourth — on allegations that they had sex with their students was not so much surprise that it happened, but curiosity about why such incidents seem to be more in the news of late.
Sexual abuse experts affirm that these types of liaisons have gone on for years. But while no concrete data exist to say the incidents are on the increase, those experts do say that a variety of factors are exposing them to the public more often.
“We’re seeing huge increases in the number of people willing to report,” said Dr. Charolv Shakeshaft, author of a landmark 2004 study of sexual relationships between teachers and students. “Before, many kids thought that teachers were allowed to do these things. In the past, they [students] thought they did something wrong. People are better educated now.”
Shakeshaft, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, said that with widespread news accounts of the incidents, there is more discussion about the issue and more youngsters have become aware that sex with a teacher is not the norm — despite what they may have been told by the educator — and that they won’t be outcasts for reporting it.
Shakeshaft and others say another major factor in getting inappropriate relationships out in the open is the advancement in technology. While technology may have fueled more teacher-student relations because text messages, emails and social media contacts allow for clandestine, 24/7 interaction, those devices also leave a traceable footprint not available to school and law enforcement officials years ago.
“There’s a cyberprint now,” said Missy Wall, director of Teen CONTACT, a Dallas teenage crisis center. “If a teacher says, ‘This didn’t happen,’ what the police can do or the school district can do is go to the IP provider and get that information. With teenagers, they videotape everything. They’re a lot smarter than you think.”
Wall said cellphones and social media such as Facebook and MySpace can unwittingly lead teachers down a dangerous path.
“With Facebook and texting, mobile devices, it allows a … conversation that may be really innocent at first,” Wall said. “But then at some point, something is said or done and a line is crossed or the relationship goes too far. Then where does it stop?”
The answer is often a jail cell. In 2003, Texas legislators made it illegal for a teacher to have sex with a student, regardless of the student’s age or whether the pupil consented.
This means educators such as former Kennedale High School teacher Brittni Colleps, arrested in May and accused of having sex with five students from the school, faces prison time even though the alleged victims were 18 or older.
Gary Hodges, deputy chief of the Dallas Independent School District’s police and security force, said the law has increased the reporting of sexual incidents between teachers and students, and, as a result, he believes it has drawn greater publicity to the issue.
“In the past, if there was consent and the student was 17 or older, then you didn’t have a crime,” Hodges said. “There may have been something that was done administratively or even internally at that particular school. You hear more about it now because it’s a criminal case and it’s a felony criminal case.”
He said the statute forces law enforcement personnel to investigate even when the victim is reluctant to pursue the case.
“A lot of times you’ll find the student doesn’t want to press charges,” Hodges said. “They’re not interested in getting their friend, their teacher, their lover in trouble. And sometimes what society doesn’t consider a proper relationship, they see as true love.”
At least one Dallas teacher said that it shouldn’t take a law to keep teachers from crossing the line.
“As a teacher, you have an oath to be a teacher and not be anything else,” said Candace McAfee, a teacher at Skyline High School. “If that happens, that is a total lack of character and ethics. It’s not even on the radar of what’s acceptable.
“With the kids, it’s all about me and pleasure — that’s what the kid is thinking,” said McAfee, a DISD instructor for 14 years. “That’s why they passed the law; you, as the teacher, have to be the responsible one.”
But in some circles, including high levels of the criminal justice system, there is doubt about the practicality of such laws, especially when the relationships are consensual.
During a 2002 sentencing hearing for a 43-year-old female teacher who pleaded guilty to having an ongoing sexual relationship with a 13-year-old male student, Superior Court Judge Bruce A. Gaetav declared, “I really don’t see the harm that was done here. I do not believe she is a sexual predator. It’s just something between these two people that clicked beyond the teacher-student relationship. Maybe it was a way of him to, once this did happen, to satisfy his sexual needs. At 13, if you think back, people mature at different ages.
“I don’t see anything here that shows this young man has been psychologically damaged by her actions,” the judge added. “And don’t forget, this was mutual consent.”
Gaeta sentenced the woman to five years probation even though she had agreed to serve three years in prison. The New Jersey Supreme Court later reprimanded the judge, who died in 2008, for his words from the bench.
Sexual abuse experts acknowledge that such attitudes are not rare. But they say such positions are repulsive and just plain wrong.
“In the state of Texas, it’s against the law,” Wall said. “It doesn’t matter if they’re 19 or 20. The teen brain doesn’t fully develop until they’re about 25 years old. Relationally, even though they’re adults by state law, they’re not adults in their own bodies.”
Shakeshaft said: “The judges are wrong. And what they’re saying is illegal. But many people believe that if a kid says it’s OK, then that’s fine. It’s not OK. Thirteen-year-olds are children. Children don’t think well. They don’t have good judgment. That’s why we have teachers.”
But Easter Williams, a retired Fort Worth educator, wonders if the embarrassment and potential prison time is enough to stem the tide of wayward teachers.
“It’s been going on for a long time … but it’s still wrong,” said Williams, who retired in 1991 after 32 years in education. “We were put there to be guardians of these children from the time they walk through those doors until the time they go home.
“Someone has to stand up and say, ‘I made a mistake and I was wrong,”’ Williams said. “Until that happens, we’re going to have these things continue to happen.”