Buffalo, NEW YORK

Her disappearance sparked a police investigation. They found her sleeping in her car. Police located the 14-year-old boy in a mall. The school knew about the "inappropriate relationship" for two weeks and never notified police.

June 20, 2008 - Cara Dickey, 29, had been repeatedly warned by the director of the charter school about an “inappropriate” relationship with a student in the two weeks before she and the 14-year-old boy disappeared. Dickey is married and the mother of three children.

Dickey was escorted from the classroom after she was caught text-messaging her pupil was found sleeping in her white Ford Escape in Springville on Tuesday morning by state troopers. Around the same time, the 14-year-old boy was found wandering around a mall.

[Inexpicably, the news stories from this newspaper names the boy who is in the eighth grade, but we choose not to.]

Teacher was warned about 'inappropriate' behavior with 14-year-old pupil (Jun 18)
Two weeks ago, two teachers went to the school’s assistant director to report that they’d witnessed “what they felt was inappropriate behavior for a teacher with a student,” Cederick Ellis, the director of South Buffalo Charter School said. The first time they talked to her informally, the second time with her union representative present.

School administrators claim that they "monitored" her. But she was allowed to be a chaperone on class trip to Canada with upper-grade students, including the boy. On the Monday following the trip, school officials observed the two sending text messages. They seized the boy's cellphone and discovered messages from Dickey on the phone that “represent inappropriate expressions of affection between an adult and a middle-school student.” She was escorted off campus at 1:45 (time corrected in another article) a.m. The boy left campus between 1:20 and 2:00 p.m.

Fired teacher hasn't been home since she was escorted from school (Jun 20)
She was fired. Her disappearance "sparked a police investigation."

South Buffalo Charter School teacher and missing student found in different places (Jun 17)
Earlier today, counselors were called to the school, and administrators held meetings with the faculty and the seventh- and eighth-graders.
-----------------------------
TT - Another one of those schools who insist on conducting their own investigation and do not notify police. Police are now investigating. You can't believe how tacky the coverage of this is by the Buffalo Times who repeatedly name the boy and his father. Buffalo Times is owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway company.

Local media seem to be taking the cue. One television station even had a picture of Dickey with her husband and three children on their news site.

TO THE GRAND JURY July 28 - The case has been sent to an Erie County Grand Jury. Dickey is accused of making a suicide pact with the child and she faces charges of unlawful imprisonment, promoting a suicide attempt and unlawfully dealing with and endangering the welfare of a child.

Dickey, who sat next to her husband, Roy, in the courtroom while waiting for the case to be called, remains free on $5,000 bail. Dickey is the mother of three children.

Besides the two felony charges, Dickey also faces two misdemeanors, endangering the welfare of a child and unlawfully dealing with a child.