ALBANY - A week ago, a first-grade teacher in Saratoga County was arrested and accused of sexually abusing elementary school students.
A week earlier, an elementary school teacher in Erie County was arrested and accused of using the Internet to meet teenage boys for sex.
But accusations like these add up to more than an occasional sex scandal that for a time shock a community. An internal state Education Department report obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Law shows “tremendous growth” in so-called moral conduct cases against teachers over five years.
The study found the number of accusations against
teachers doubled in five years, to nearly one case for every day and a half of the school year. Almost three in four of the “moral conduct” cases involved sex between a teacher and student.
Taken together, the cases show a pattern of a small number of teachers preying on adolescents' need for attention, then exploiting their insecurities to keep the secret out of fear of ridicule or long-lasting damage. The misconduct is part of a system in which other teachers can be reluctant to report colleagues, administrators are reluctant to act on claims that could result in bad press and lawsuits, and state hearing officers are not trained to spot and deal with sexual misconduct.
A state investigator called one case “almost like a type of mind control” often reinforced by e-mails and instant messages. The teacher signed off with “Love, Mr. J” with a smiley face in a computer message that talked about how the girl would look swimming nude, according to one incident file.
The study found:
-401 cases were brought to the state Education Department's Professional Standards and Practices Board from 2000 to 2004. They included inappropriate relationships, sex crimes, child pornography and lewd behavior.
-71 percent of the cases sent to the state's professional practices committee involved sex. The next largest category was drug and alcohol cases, which accounted for 10 percent.
-245 cases ended with a teaching certificate either revoked, suspended, surrendered or denied.
-101 of the cases were in 2004, more than double the 48 cases in 2000.
The increased cases are attributed to “better reporting by school districts, increased awareness in law enforcement ... and fingerprinting,” according to the report.
The individual records show the abusing teachers are overwhelmingly men, from all age groups, and considered good and popular instructors by colleagues who testify for them and sometimes against the students.
The victims are often devastated.
One 17-year-old honor student from a rural, upstate school said a teacher forced her to have sex with him, telling her “that if she told anyone, he would kill her, and, laughing, left to go upstairs to take a shower.”
A year later, after he was accused of exposing himself to a woman teacher, the student testified against him, only to be yelled at and pushed around by other girls defending the popular instructor.
The victim quit school just before graduation.
“She was upset and didn't want this to happen to someone else and it had to stop,” the girl's coach testified. “She couldn't believe he did this to her.”
“The vast majority of cases,” the state Education Department study states, “involve inappropriate relationships and sex incidents, and drug and alcohol problems,” according to the study of public schools dated November 2005. “A further analysis of the case types demonstrates that a significant number of the cases involving certificate holders involve sex-related incidents, including sex crimes, inappropriate relationships with students, child pornography, pornography on school computers, lewdness and sexual harassment.”
The relationships and other sex cases often continued for months or years before action was taken.
In a rural upstate district with 1,000 students, a music teacher had his license revoked last year after he was accused of sexual relationships with a girl from 1987 to 1989 and with another in 1997. Both girls were in the 11th grade.
One girl said she loved him after what was her first sexual encounter.
“He laughed at her and then instructed her not to tell anyone about their encounters as no one would believe her and he was well connected in the music field and could have an impact on her future,” the investigator's report stated.
“We need to be more concerned with the well-being of kids than the well-being of adults,” said Charol Shakeshaft, a professor at Hofstra University who has studied educator sexual abuse in New York. In 2004 she wrote an analysis of the scant research in the area for the U.S. Department of Education. She found that nearly one in 10 students nationwide are targets of “educator sexual misconduct.”
“By and large, the majority of sexual misconduct in schools is not being detected, or stopped,” she said.
Part of the problem is that educators aren't trained to identify behavior patterns. For example, a teacher who helps many different students after school doesn't fit the pattern of an abuser; but a teacher who sees the same student or the same physical type of student does fit the pattern.
“What they say is, `Oh, well you know I always thought something was funny,' or `I was never very comfortable with”' some behavior, she said, referring to her interviews with hundreds of teachers in schools with proven cases of abuse. “They didn't have either the permission or the knowledge to say, `That's a problem.”
There has been progress, she said. When a claim gets to the district superintendent there is usually appropriate action. The concern remains getting the report outside the school into the district office.
The internal 2005 report was the first state study of its kind. Three months earlier, an Associated Press report based on hundreds of individual case records revealed most public school teachers and administrators who had their licenses revoked or suspended were accused in sex cases involving students.
In many of those cases, relationships continued for months or years and administrators allowed offenders to resign quietly even if they could later teach elsewhere.
State Education Commissioner Richard Mills has also issued guidelines to schools on how to handle accusations.
“The report was produced because of the importance of this issue and the need to get accurate and comprehensive data,” said Jonathan Burman of the state Education Department. “We hope that the work we do in disciplining the small percentage of educators whose behavior renders them unfit to serve will have a deterrent effect.”
---
On the Net:
State Education Department: http://www.nysed.gov
AP-ES-02-17-07 1216EST
But accusations like these add up to more than an occasional sex scandal that for a time shock a community. An internal state Education Department report obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Law shows “tremendous growth” in so-called moral conduct cases against teachers over five years.
The study found the number of accusations against
teachers doubled in five years, to nearly one case for every day and a half of the school year. Almost three in four of the “moral conduct” cases involved sex between a teacher and student.
Taken together, the cases show a pattern of a small number of teachers preying on adolescents' need for attention, then exploiting their insecurities to keep the secret out of fear of ridicule or long-lasting damage. The misconduct is part of a system in which other teachers can be reluctant to report colleagues, administrators are reluctant to act on claims that could result in bad press and lawsuits, and state hearing officers are not trained to spot and deal with sexual misconduct.
A state investigator called one case “almost like a type of mind control” often reinforced by e-mails and instant messages. The teacher signed off with “Love, Mr. J” with a smiley face in a computer message that talked about how the girl would look swimming nude, according to one incident file.
The study found:
-401 cases were brought to the state Education Department's Professional Standards and Practices Board from 2000 to 2004. They included inappropriate relationships, sex crimes, child pornography and lewd behavior.
-71 percent of the cases sent to the state's professional practices committee involved sex. The next largest category was drug and alcohol cases, which accounted for 10 percent.
-245 cases ended with a teaching certificate either revoked, suspended, surrendered or denied.
-101 of the cases were in 2004, more than double the 48 cases in 2000.
The increased cases are attributed to “better reporting by school districts, increased awareness in law enforcement ... and fingerprinting,” according to the report.
The individual records show the abusing teachers are overwhelmingly men, from all age groups, and considered good and popular instructors by colleagues who testify for them and sometimes against the students.
The victims are often devastated.
One 17-year-old honor student from a rural, upstate school said a teacher forced her to have sex with him, telling her “that if she told anyone, he would kill her, and, laughing, left to go upstairs to take a shower.”
A year later, after he was accused of exposing himself to a woman teacher, the student testified against him, only to be yelled at and pushed around by other girls defending the popular instructor.
The victim quit school just before graduation.
“She was upset and didn't want this to happen to someone else and it had to stop,” the girl's coach testified. “She couldn't believe he did this to her.”
“The vast majority of cases,” the state Education Department study states, “involve inappropriate relationships and sex incidents, and drug and alcohol problems,” according to the study of public schools dated November 2005. “A further analysis of the case types demonstrates that a significant number of the cases involving certificate holders involve sex-related incidents, including sex crimes, inappropriate relationships with students, child pornography, pornography on school computers, lewdness and sexual harassment.”
The relationships and other sex cases often continued for months or years before action was taken.
In a rural upstate district with 1,000 students, a music teacher had his license revoked last year after he was accused of sexual relationships with a girl from 1987 to 1989 and with another in 1997. Both girls were in the 11th grade.
One girl said she loved him after what was her first sexual encounter.
“He laughed at her and then instructed her not to tell anyone about their encounters as no one would believe her and he was well connected in the music field and could have an impact on her future,” the investigator's report stated.
“We need to be more concerned with the well-being of kids than the well-being of adults,” said Charol Shakeshaft, a professor at Hofstra University who has studied educator sexual abuse in New York. In 2004 she wrote an analysis of the scant research in the area for the U.S. Department of Education. She found that nearly one in 10 students nationwide are targets of “educator sexual misconduct.”
“By and large, the majority of sexual misconduct in schools is not being detected, or stopped,” she said.
Part of the problem is that educators aren't trained to identify behavior patterns. For example, a teacher who helps many different students after school doesn't fit the pattern of an abuser; but a teacher who sees the same student or the same physical type of student does fit the pattern.
“What they say is, `Oh, well you know I always thought something was funny,' or `I was never very comfortable with”' some behavior, she said, referring to her interviews with hundreds of teachers in schools with proven cases of abuse. “They didn't have either the permission or the knowledge to say, `That's a problem.”
There has been progress, she said. When a claim gets to the district superintendent there is usually appropriate action. The concern remains getting the report outside the school into the district office.
The internal 2005 report was the first state study of its kind. Three months earlier, an Associated Press report based on hundreds of individual case records revealed most public school teachers and administrators who had their licenses revoked or suspended were accused in sex cases involving students.
In many of those cases, relationships continued for months or years and administrators allowed offenders to resign quietly even if they could later teach elsewhere.
State Education Commissioner Richard Mills has also issued guidelines to schools on how to handle accusations.
“The report was produced because of the importance of this issue and the need to get accurate and comprehensive data,” said Jonathan Burman of the state Education Department. “We hope that the work we do in disciplining the small percentage of educators whose behavior renders them unfit to serve will have a deterrent effect.”
---
On the Net:
State Education Department: http://www.nysed.gov
AP-ES-02-17-07 1216EST
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