Most of these relationships begin brewing from online or through text
messages. The I-Team has found some believe policies on teacher-student
communication need to be stronger.
Andrea Clemens moved to Florida years ago after, she tells us, she was
raped and stalked by her middle school teacher Robert Baker.
She was 14, and he was the award winning teacher everyone liked.
He befriended her for two years. She says he crossed the line when she was 16.
...
Fred spent six years studying teacher-student sex abuse. He wrote the book “Cybertraps for Educators.”
"Consistently my recommendation to school boards is that the duty of
care and the standard teachers should be held to is no unmediated
conversation electronically," Fred said.
...
Districts that lack clear cut policies run the risk of enabling
the bad behavior, according to Fred and Andrea. Fred calls the problem
an epidemic.
"You could quibble of
whether or not that that's too strong of a word, but I think it's
defensible in terms of both the scope of the problem and perhaps more
significantly our delay in treating it," Fred said.
Andreas tells us, "It can't lead any place good. It really can't, and
I don't understand why schools wouldn't rush to implement policies
immediately just to keep the kids safe and keep the teachers safe, too."
...
As long as there are legal technicalities there will be student casualties.
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