NEWSPAPER EDITORIAL
March 29, 2008 - From the Tampa Tribune: "Public Fed Up With Teacher Sex Cases"
Sometime during the overexposure of Debra Lafave - the Barbie-like teacher turned sexual predator - people started to think differently about female teachers having sex with students.TT - Teachers aren't being arrested because the public is suddenly aware. They are being arrested because they sexually exploit students and they've gotten what? Probation.
And that, we would argue, helps explain the number of female teachers being arrested for sexual misconduct - a string of trysts that has kept Tampa in the national headlines.
At Freedom High, a fellow instructor turned in English teacher Mary Jo Spack and at Martinez Middle School, a colleague who heard rumors of an affair involving math teacher Stephanie Ragusa blew the whistle. In Pasco County, the father of the boy who was allegedly having an affair with Mitchell High School substitute teacher Lisa Marinelli alerted authorities after spotting his son getting out of the teacher's car.
Male teachers are being held accountable too. At Newsome High School, a student reported soccer coach Ronnie Lewis for having sex with a female student.
Don't be surprised if more cases arise. It's not something in the water and it's not teachers have suddenly gone wild.
It's that the rest of us are finally recognizing these relationships for the crimes they are.
The final sentence in that editorial is a little disturbing but not unexpected. Not when newspapers report sexual abuse as "an affair" or a "romantic relationship" and the clandestine meetings to avoid detection as "trysts" and when a newspaper actually editorialized against a sentence for a teacher because it was a "complicated affair."
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