COMMENTARY | Public school teachers in multiple states made headlines on a fairly regular basis in 2011 for all the wrong reasons. Thousands of dedicated and caring educators across America must already be cringing because similar news articles are once again announcing teacher arrests for student sexual assault and abuse charges in the first few weeks of 2012.
California math teacher Marie Johnson of Livermore High School was arrested last week for having a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old male student, according to the Huffington Post. Substitute teacher Steven Royer was arrested for the alleged battery of a third grade student in Indiana, according to WLFL News. Sacramento, Calif., art teacher Ben Horner was arrested for statutory rape and oral copulation of a 16-year-old- student at James Logan High School last week, according to the Sacramento Bee. Alabama elementary school teacher Daniel Acker Jr. was arrested two weeks ago for abusing a fourth grade student, according to the Associated Press.
Although we are less than one month into the new year, students have been placed into the daily care of these alleged abusers for many months. A reasonable person cannot expect any profession to always be free from scandal, but the growing number of teachers indicted for sexual misconduct is cause for concern.
Parents are used to worrying when their children are playing at the park after school, riding with friends who are novice drivers and when they are spending the night away from home; they should not have to cross their fingers and hope they return from school with their innocence still intact.
Perhaps a little bit of a "Big Brother" approach is necessary in America's public schools. Surveillance cameras are no longer uncommon in school hallways and may now also be necessary in the classroom and faculty parking lot. Students in many schools must permit backpack inspections and allow staff to review cellphone messages, texts and call logs while on school grounds.
The invasion of privacy for the sake of safety should be expanded to include all taxpayer-funded employees at the school as well. Reviewing communications activity would not stop all sexual predators posing as teachers, but it would make courting victims a whole lot harder.
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