Why are so many teachers -- especially women teachers -- having sex with their students in Florida?
Per TIME, "...the number of reports on female teachers' misbehavior is on the rise. In November, the (Orlando) Sentinel reported that at least 150 Florida teachers had been disciplined for sexual misconduct with students."
When I attended high school about a hundred years back, I can recall three such student-teacher liaisons. In one case, the teacher had "dated" at least two other students.
He eventually married one. In the other two cases, both also married. One couple divorced within a couple of years, while the other lived the whole three kids-dog and cat-mortgage American dream, only to divorce thirty-five years later.
Female teachers with male/female students don't come to mind, but I do recall a junior high school teacher, whom the pubescent crowd referred to as cool" She was an older woman--likely all of fifty--who oozed style, standing out from her colleagues by wearing the latest fashions, punctuated with the most current hair style. Kids often visited her home after school. But then, the neighborhood kids used to visit another man considered eccentric, a guy who dressed in full cowboy gear and drove around town with a set of bull horns bolted to the hood of his Lincoln Town Car.
It was a different time, when many young men came home from Vietnam in flag-draped caskets. As long as the rest of us under 21 types were home by the time the street lights flickered on, what could be worse than the next door neighbor burying their 23-year-old son?
That being said...
Did these teachers cross a professional boundary?
Looking back as an adult, of course. Remembering back, I recall the parents of the young ladies who eventually divorced their teacher husbands--condoned the relationships, considering the young men (all under 25) a good catch in a town where most girls were pregnant by sixteen.
As far as the fashionable likely-50-something, she eventually "retired" as word (rumors) of smoking pot with students caught the ears of parents.
Drugs were the Parent Fear of Choice during those days.
She wasn't arrested for contributing to the delinquency of minors or placed in stocks in our small town. The situation was handled to the satisfaction of all parties involved. Quietly.
Not so today.
Adam Putnam, a Republican whose district includes Hillsborough, Polk and Osceola, would set up a schools version of the national sex-offender database. Read more here.
Kids have long memories. Just take a look at what I've remembered. If Putnam's teacher registry comes to fruition, each time a local yokel brings up a teacher offender's page, the student involved is revictimized. For years and at every friggin' high school reunion.
As long as 24/7 communications fuels this frenzy, politicians will find a way to garner a vote off the fire.
This time around the Florida school yard, it's Adam Putnam.
***
“Let’s call these cases what they are: sexual assaults. Now, before we read about another teacher assaulting yet another student. Before another family has to deal with the emotional and psychological damage caused. Before another classroom or school is shaken by another breach of trust. Now -- not later -- let us give schools the tools they need to keep repeat sexual offenders from preying on students within the very institutions that should be a safe-haven for our children.”
--Adam Putnam
Meanwhile, over at the Julia Tuttle Causeway...
...instead of assuming responsibility for their own actions, the city of Miami "...has asked Gov. Charlie Crist to remove the sex offenders living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway, citing a nearby island deemed to be a public park."
This should prove interesting, as as far as I know, the Governor didn't bother to respond to an earlier request made by ACLU lawyers to intervene on Julia Tuttle's behalf back in February 2008.
Meanwhile, over at the Julia Tuttle Causeway...
...instead of assuming responsibility for their own actions, the city of Miami "...has asked Gov. Charlie Crist to remove the sex offenders living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway, citing a nearby island deemed to be a public park."
This should prove interesting, as as far as I know, the Governor didn't bother to respond to an earlier request made by ACLU lawyers to intervene on Julia Tuttle's behalf back in February 2008.
Miami City Manager Pete Hernandez sent a letter this week to Gov. Charlie Crist, demanding the state immediately relocate the 70 offenders living under the causeway because they live too close to the island, which the city considers a public park.
The group of men -- and one woman -- have been forced to live under the bridge for two years because of a patchwork of local government laws that makes it illegal for them to live within 2,500 feet of where children might congregate.
With nowhere to go in Miami-Dade -- and limited pockets in Broward and Palm Beach counties, which have similar laws -- the state has allowed the ever-growing encampment to fester under the bridge, on property it owns.
This week, Hernandez said that since the spoil island known as Picnic Island #4 is only 1,200 feet from the Julia Tuttle, ``all of the offenders currently living under the causeway are subject to arrest for living in a location that is within 2,500 feet of a park.''
The small oblong island is only reachable by boat. It's adorned with a chickee hut, its shores supported by boulders.
''It's an island. We have some picnic tables. People stop by on boats,'' said Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, whose staff discovered the island.
(...)Responding to Hernandez's letter, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said only 41 of the 70 living under the bridge are on probation and under the state's jurisdiction.
She also said Picnic Island #4 ``is not considered a park where children congregate. There's no playground there.''
Hmmm. When such a playground appear--and oh, count on it--does that mean the tenants under the bridge are grandfathered to live at their current address?
Of course, Ron Book, lobbyist and Ironic Chair of the Homeless Trust, offered a these words of wisdom as to the state of Florida.
'They want somebody else to pay for the problem."
Read more over at the Herald.
