I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
waaaaa?
Huh?
I always wondered if teachers tried this, um, recruitment technique...
Maybe I'd better post that link from the last thread:
Protests Against Government Sex Ed Site
Is that a communist re-education camp?
"gentlemen, we got to protect our phoney balogny jobs... harrrumph..."
The Gov.
As long as the coaches are promoting a culture of life, don't you think it's ok to do students?
Typical suburban highschool. When I was in high school, the coaches and the biology teacher were all involved with students. Didn't seem like a big deal at the time...
wrong thread - uh... maybe no
They say that sports teaches kids important lessons they can use for the rest of their life.
11 years to life for getting involved with a 17 yr old?
Sorry, that seems a little harsh to me.
Not that I'd condone teachers doing students.
"They say that sports teaches kids important lessons they can use for the rest of their life."
--Warren Terra
With Gusto!
Who's Gusto?
yea, age of consent laws at 18 are too high, though there might be a "custodial relationship" provision in CO law which makes it more reasonable.
No Child's Behind Left Untouched?
Can't ANYBODY keep it in their pants anymore? And why, in this permissive grooming climate, did no female teachers seduce the young lads on the chess or debate teams?
It's ALWAYS the jocks who are involved in this stuff. NEVER the nerdlingers. And that's a shame.
David Ehrenstein, That "Gusto" is one scary dude. The eyes reveal it every time.
Yeah, tennis takes balls.
In my hs graduating class (1973, roughly the time dinosaurs roamed the earth), our swimming coach married the first ranked swimmer on the girls' team one week after graduation. Apparently it was not a big secret that they'd been dating since she was 15 and he was still married to his first wife.
Drunkee--in my high school, a lot of 'fund drives' for the cheerleaders were in fact collections for said cheerleaders to have abortions.
My thoughts are teachers shouldn't do it with students in high school or college. Young men and women are too impressionable at that age.
Sallyh-
Oh my lord. I believe that. And now, every one of those raffle tickets I bought from some pretty girl in the hope she would talk to me some more...it ALL MAKES SENSE.
God, ain't high school a trip.
Not that I'd condone teachers doing students.
+++++++++++++++++++++===
It's precisely because a teacher is in a special position of not just authority, but moral authority that when caught, the punishment must be harsher.
TJ
Did you go to my school???
The class ahead of me, my class and the class behind me all had a student/teacher relationship --- all of which ended in marriage very shortly after graduation.
All of which were openly known to students and staff.
Interestingly, the one from my class was still going strong at the 20yr reunion. Not sure about the others.
I would say that's the goddamnedest thing I've ever heard, but then I remember, hey...I grew up in small-town Mississippi, where all kinds of fucked up shit goes down. I know of at least three teachers in my high school that diddled students, including an ex-football coach of mine that dated my first cousin and nearly got his dumb ass killed by a shit-ton of pissed-off stump jumpers.
I hear all kinds of shit from back home - wife swapping, girls still "going off to visit her aunt/older sister for the summer", a serious crank infestation - and think that maybe having almost no contact with anyone from my high school wasn't such a bad idea after all.
And this is a town in Northeast Mississippi in a county with less than 23,000 people in it. Small towns are fuckin' weird, y'all.
Nice, sounds like the Democratic Party IS alive and well down south.
I mean, face it, everyone knows that Teachers are wholesale aligned with the DNC through the dues they pay to the NEA.
Okay, i really need to clean house, but I just got a phone call that freaked me. it was from an Army recruiter, asking to speak to my daughter. She's not at home, as is typical for a 19 year old with a life, so the recruiter proceeded to say to me, I understand she's enrolled in the nursing program at her school. My jaw hit the ground. I asked, how the hell did you find that out? He wouldn't answer my question, but proceeded to go on and on about how they could pay for her education, etc. I politely informed him that her father and I were quite capable of paying for it, thank you, and that I thought having the military pay for her education so she could be sent out to serve in wars based on false pretenses and get blown up was not such a terrific deal.
What really freaked me is that they knew where she was going to school and what she was studying. I'm not handling this well.
Sallyh: it's a brave new world.
Jesus. I wonder if there's any way you can find out how the recruiter got the information. High schools have to provide info about students unless you specifically request they not do it.
Sorry to hear about what happened to you and your daughter, Sallyh. I really't hope her school wasn't the one giving out your daughter's info! If so, they deserve an angry letter or a hundred.
Kevin Ponis? Kevin PONIS? Is this like Alotta Fagina? NOW will you take Eligere seriously when she tells you failed novelists are writing the news?
What really freaked me is that they knew where she was going to school and what she was studying. I'm not handling this well.
And then there's the other extreme...
One of my coworkers has a son who's quadriplegic from an accident. A recruiter called him up. The son patiently explained that he had broken his neck the previous year. The response was something like: "Oh, so you're still in a cast?"
You obviously don't know too many Southern teachers. The NEA has very tenuous power in the South - or did last time I paid attention (since my mom retired in '97), and it depends on the state, really. Strong in Georgia, for example, but very weak in Mississippi and Arkansas (and Alabama, too, I think).
And for the most part, them that voted Democrat when that was all you could vote for are voting Republican these days. Have been, basically, since Nixon. The last vestiges of the old-school the Old South Democratic Party is way past gone, and they've all headed to the elephant.
they've all headed to the elephant.
That explains why they're buried under a mountain of sh!t.
I'm planning to find out if her college was the one that released the information. It's a public community college, and if they released it, it's crying time for them.
"who is serving a prison sentence of 11-years to life for having had an ongoing sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student."
Yeah, I understand the special relationship part...but 17 to freaking life? You could probably murder somone that young and cop to lesser years.
Also, does anyone know if students studying to be health care professionals are on their target list? I don't know if there is a shortage of health care pros in the military at this point or not.
Sallyh, at this point, all 18+ year olds are on a target list.
Eli, damn. Someone needs to disconnect their stoopid-tubes.
Once again, my Colorado is in the news for some kind or another case of freakish behavior. I'll have y'all know that Jefferson County is as republican and conservative as it gets and this story is a pack of lies, lies I tell you.
This is what happens when kids are allowed too much freedom--had those kids been home-schooled, they could have kept it in the family.
At my HS, the priest that taught 'marriage' class gave after school instructions to the prettiest girls in the class (they got A's, natch).
My non-priest chemistry teacher married a student a few weeks after she graduated (he was single as well). Considering this is a catholic HS, it sort of freaked a lot of people out, but he was still allowed to teach there.
Maybe I'd better post that link from the last thread:
Sallyh
Wow! I'm so glad that I don't do web sites for Leavitt anymore! 
I would have had to refuse to do that one on moral grounds!
I did the first ladies light the fire within website (for the Salt Lake Olympics), now defunct, for the Leavitts.
Someone needs to explain to this guy that not everyone is a Mormon. And the Mormon way of doing things (i.e. Conservative Christian) is not necessarily the correct way for everyone.
Oh and the pope just died.
Cheers
So this guy gets 11 to life for a relationship with a 17 year old. What was the penalty that one woman teacher got for having 2 kids with that 12 year old, again? She's out already, right?
At my HS, the priest that taught 'marriage' class gave after school instructions to the prettiest girls in the class (they got A's, natch).
Um, which particular aspects of marriage did this class cover?
Fake Vicki again.
> I always wondered if teachers tried
> this, um, recruitment technique...
Shocking! This has only been going on for, oh, 15,000 years or so. I don't think HS teachers should do it, and they certainly should have the decency and law-abidingness to wait until the seductee is 18, but to pretend this hasn't been going on since the first formal instructional relationship formed is silly.
Cranky
Sallyh---the marine and army recruiters have been calling my 19 year old daughter incessantly since Dec. I finally talked to one a couple weeks ago--he did not know she was in college. Anyway, I told him she has asthma and now all the calls from all the recruiters have stopped.
11 years to life too harsh for screwing a 17-year-old? But this isn't about violence or corruption, this is about SEX, dammit! Of course the punishment has to be severe. Sexual pleasure is the most dangerous and insidious element in our God-fearing society. Let this go and what's next? Sex education in the schools? Contraception? We can't have such perversion in our theocracy! Hanging is too good for him! I hope they put him in the stocks for a few days before throwing him in the slammer.
Poor girl. Now that she's been exposed to all those orgasms, how on earth will she ever be convinced to marry a Christian? Another lost soul—er, body.
"Also, does anyone know if students studying to be health care professionals are on their target list? I don't know if there is a shortage of health care pros in the military at this point or not."
Yes.
"MEDICAL DRAFT IN STANDBY MODE
The Health Care Personnel Delivery System (HCPDS) is a standby plan developed for the Selective Service System at the request of Congress. If needed it would be used to draft health care personnel in a crisis. It is designed to be implemented in connection with a national mobilization in an emergency, and then only if Congress and the President approve the plan and pass and sign legislation to enact it. No portion of the plan is designed for implementation in peacetime. If implemented, HCPDS would:
Provide a fair and equitable draft of doctors, nurses, medical technicians and those with certain other health care skills if, in some future emergency, the military’s existing medical capability proved insufficient and there is a shortage of volunteers.
Include women, unless directed otherwise by Congress and the President.
Draft a very small percentage of America’s health care providers into military service. Impact on the availability of civilian health care would be minimal. Those health-care workers whose absence would seriously hurt their communities would be deferred on the basis of community essentiality.
Begin a mass registration of male and female health care workers between the ages of 20 and 45. They would register at local post offices.
HCPDS would provide medical personnel from a pool of 3.4 million doctors, nurses, specialists and allied health professionals in more than 60 fields of medicine.
Require minimal training for HCPDS draftees, because they are already skilled personnel."
www.sss.gov
As well, 'No Child Left Behind' and 'Patriot' laws provide for access to military recruiters of all enrolled students at public and publicly funded schools, thru university level, or the school will face withdrawal of federal funding. The only means of avoiding contact is thru active 'opting out' by either the emancipated student or by the parent/guardian.
It's ALWAYS the jocks who are involved in this stuff. NEVER the nerdlingers. And that's a shame.
Drunkee
In my High School I heard a few years after I'd moved on (into the Military to avoid being a Mormon missionary - natch), that my debate coach had been busted for having sexual relations with a female student.
Knowing him, I don't really think he wouldn't have groomed someone for that purpose. The debate team was kind of the disestablishmentarians of the school actually. Too bad his long time Girlfriend, my history teacher, didn't groom me the same way!
I think he just lost his job, no jail time was involved. 11 yrs to life sounds a little like overkill to me too.
coaches who prey - a great investigative series from the seattle times.
When I was attending my Ivy League law school (1983-86), boffing one's prof, and subsequently marrying him, seemed to be the principal way for a woman to get onto the faculty. Obviously the women involved were, say, 22 or older (not 17) when said boffing commenced. Said profs kept their chaired professorships and didn't get packed off to prison for 11 years to life. What a difference five years makes.
Require minimal training for HCPDS draftees, because they are already skilled personnel."
www.sss.gov
As well, 'No Child Left Behind' and 'Patriot' laws provide for access to military recruiters of all enrolled students at public and publicly funded schools, thru university level, or the school will face withdrawal of federal funding. The only means of avoiding contact is thru active 'opting out' by either the emancipated student or by the parent/guardian
Not to worry. When the draft and casualty spikes occur Paul "sleeps with arab war lobbyist" Bremer will
set in action his previously planned outsourcing campaign for infrastructure:BMN press release-
BMN PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Shari Gelfand
212-661-3500 ext 3281 phone
sgelfand@iirusa.com
AMBASSADOR L. PAUL BREMER, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ENVOY TO IRAQ PRESENTS
UNIQUE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES KEYNOTE AT PARTNERSHIPS WITH CROS
-- April 04-06 2005 -- Adam's Mark Dallas Hotel, Dallas TX
http://mailiwant.com/links.jsp?l...d=140532&
type=0
NEW YORK NY USA -- MEDICAL INDUSTRY E-MAIL NEWS SERVICE(TM) -- MARCH 09
2005 -- The 14th Annual Partnerships With CROs Conference team
announced today that they have secured Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, former
Presidential Envoy to Iraq, to deliver the opening keynote at the 2005 event.
Ambassador Bremer's experience as one of the world's foremost experts
on leading in a challenging environment during a period of change, gives
him an exceptional perspective on leadership challenges. Event Director
Pam Sobotka, notes, "We feel that Ambassador Bremer's experiences make
him uniquely qualified to address pharmaceutical industry leaders about
how he approached enormous challenges as part of a team that overcame
opposition to bring about change."
Event Co-Chair Christopher Gallen MD PhD, President/CEO of Neuromed
Technologies Inc, remarks, "It is an honor to have Ambassador Bremer share
with us his personal and professional experiences in the face of
conflict, physical risk and resistance. We can all draw from the valuable
lessons of Ambassador Bremer's ability to confront the facts, articulate a
message, rally people of good will and influence people outside your
scope of control, in order to execute changes key to driving renewal."
BACKGROUND:
The 14th annual Partnerships with CROs and Other Outsourcing Providers
event is the leading US pharmaceutical industry gathering on
outsourcing and the development of effective clinical partnerships
The usual scare tactics stuff.
Hell my 9th grade civics teacher, a Goldwater supporter in his teen days, married the girl who sat next to me.
Hope to hear they're still dealing well. 
Anyways this ties into those church sponsored religious initiatives correctional facilities thread?
The fundies are in high visibility time, might as well throw the ugly egg-in-face realities of their horried policies onto the topic list for the world to abhor...
I am sure all these teachers were proud members of the Jefferson County Teacher's Union (JCEA) -- a big Democratic force in the CEA. Howard Dean would be so proud of one of his biggest supporters!
"I'll have y'all know that Jefferson County is as republican and conservative as it gets and this story is a pack of lies, lies I tell you..."
Not only is it conservative and republican, but the area surrounding that school is home to more fundamentalist churches than you would believe. I live within miles of Dakota Ridge, and if you drive West on Bowles Ave., it is just one huge fundamentalist church after another all the way to the foothills.
Odd that schools located in very conservative districts (Columbine is also in Jefferson Country) have so many problems.
The teacher shouldn't have been having a relationship with his student. Period. That said, eleven to life looks like overkill to me.
This goes to show you... We shouldn't allow heterosexuals to teach our children... next thing you know, they're gonna recruit them.
Sallyh--
LAUSD schools give out that sort of information routinely. I wouldnt be surprised if county community colleges did the same.
We have had calls too from recruiters and mail.
You need to harass your community college school board about it.
Whoa! I wish I had gone there.
I think the sentences are appropriate, but a little long. What these guys do is horrible. In that great Seattle Times link above, the respect they have for their high school gf s is well represented. '"If we were driving where people might see us, he would put my head down onto the seat of the car until we got out of town," she later said in a statement' Victimless crime? Then again, I think 5 to 10 years would be enough. I'm not sure prison is a pleasant experience for such offenders.
Whether or not the sentence is overkill really depends on what the guy was doing.
There are two types of student-teacher relationships. The first type is clearly consensual and just inappropriate to some degree (depending on the age of the student).
The second type is coercive to some degree. The worst offenders are predatory.
I told you and told you and told you that those gay male teachers were predators. But did you listen? NO.
Oh, what's that? Not gay? Oh.
Never mind.
Sorry, Wile. Didn't see your post.
Dammit, I mean Sorry, Jim.
Like I said
Never mind
Kevin Ponis? Kevin PONIS? Is this like Alotta Fagina? ...
Eligere | Email | Homepage | 04.02.05 - 2:58 pm | #
Eligere: you "beat" me to it....I think it was a misprint - must Kovin uhh, Penis.
Story here (since I live out here) was the teacher getting 11 years to life for his relationship with a 17 year old. Article asserted other teachers were involved with other kids, but no proof. Liteweight journalism.
But mostly it's about tough justice for a teacher who violated trust...
Sounds similar to them fundie "youth pastors" who spend a lot of time "counseling" their school kids about sex...
This smells like a McMartin-style panic to me. Nothing new about a few teachers diddling students, but the implication here is that there was a conspiracy to brainwash students into becoming sex toys.
Unless the teachers are confessing to this kind of conspiracy (very unlikely), I'd bet that the police are pressuring the students to construe every every teacher transgression (drinking beer with students, flirting, etc.) as being part of the "grooming."
The incredibly harsh sentence for the ONE teacher who's been prosecuted fits the pattern of panic and investigative overreach. This really makes me nervous, as I'm a teacher and these panics tend to spread.
Just because things happen in the closet doesn't make them wrong, gays living in America in the 1950s would have behaved the same way. Neither are high school/college students "impressionable", unless they're homeschooled or horribly repressed (hello Christian America). People in their late teens are if anything overwhelmingly horny. Its normal. Its healthy. STD and pregnancy scare tactics notwithstanding, sexual repression of young people is more harmful to young people than any possible benefit. Thats why girls do this in areas where repression is high, what else are they gonna do? I agree adults should leave adolescents and children alone, however, females typically reach physical maturity at about 15-16 years of age (same at 17-18 for males). I know manipulation is an issue (it always is in any relationship) but this wouldn't be as much of a concern if every high school student were taught a comprehensive human sexuality class (it's my major, by the way). We give them driver's ed for God's sake. In short, wake up people. Listen to the tone of the article. Right Wing Hate Machine all the f'ing way. Don't fall for it. This same crap was widely accepted of gays up until the 70's. I assure you all, it is very normal for a man of any age to be strongly attracted to a healthy 17 year old female (something to do with some survival instint or other... reproduction maybe). You can't fight Mother Nature. When you try, bad things happen. Based on the evidence presented in the article, the worst this guy should get(however big a jerk he may indeed be) is dismissal on grounds of unethical behaviour. Sorry for the novel, but I just can't take this "evil penis/helpless vagina" bs anymore. It's bad for the species.
And by the way. Kerry won the election. Everyone should tell everyone to go to uscountvotes.org. Let the impeachment hearings begin.
I dunno, PK. As the father of a girl who will reach that age in a half-dozen years, I don't relish the thought of some teacher preying on her.
Bill you went there before me. McMartin came to my mind too. That whole gotdamn guilt-ridden 80s pathology against daycares.
Shocking! This has only been going on for, oh, 15,000 years or so. I don't think HS teachers should do it, and they certainly should have the decency and law-abidingness to wait until the seductee is 18, but to pretend this hasn't been going on since the first formal instructional relationship formed is silly. - Cranky Observer
The ancient Greeks did this sort of thing - of course, then it was male teachers and male students. This one of the various types of Toevos prohibited by those verses in Leviticus the fundies think prohibit homosexuality.
BTW - was listening to a fundie station a few days back to get my fill of cheezy Jebus music -- they were read ad nauseum from Leviticus, without any commentary or even a half-way decent translation (incest is not "wickedness" ... the Hebrew word essentially means "over the top" or "too much": as in 'loving someone as a sister and as a sex-partner is just over the top and too much').
I wondered why - though. Why are the fundies caring about Leviticus? They don't keep kosher ... they don't do any of that stuff - so what is their obsession with a holiness code to which they are not obligated and the founders of the religion they claim to follow (Christianity) supposedly exempted everyone from so long as they have the proper faith?
I just don't get it.
On topic - so how did the teachers manage to do this? Not that I was attempting to groom any of them, but the female students who were in the class I TA'd now barely seem to give me the time of day when I see them in the student center or what not ...
I'm planning to find out if her college was the one that released the information. It's a public community college, and if they released it, it's crying time for them.
Sallyh | 3:01 pm
Dint get all the way through the thread, so somebody else may have already alluded to this: Schools recieving federal aid, from hs thru Univ, are required by either NCLB or HSA to supply recruiters with this information...iirc..
PK- I think you're missing the point. Sexual maturity aside, there has always been something creepy about guys in their 30's or 40's trolling for high school girls. It's exploitative at best. The fact that this guy was in a position of authority with these girls just makes it that much worse. He easily qualifies for POS status on the "good guy" dimensional scale. 'Good guy' adults don't use high school girls for sex - emotionally-stunted predators do.
It's not just the age difference- there can be huge emotional, social, cultural, and power differences between a high school student and even say a 25 year old. Much as an 18 year old may legally be treated as an adult, that does not immediately confer the level of life maturity of someone older. Most mature adults prefer the company of other adults socially, in part because hanging around the schoolyard just isn't that interesting.
By the way, most of the recent articles don't bother to mention Ponis' age (36). The school had known for years (going back to 1999) that there was something going on with this guy, but they avoided taking action. Here's more about him from another article:
Ponis was convicted of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust as a pattern of conduct.
That unwieldy legal phrasing is another way of saying that the charismatic and well-liked teacher made a habit of flirting with his favorite female students, leading them inexorably from talking about sex into actually having it. In two of the cases, he waited until the girls were 18; a third girl was 17 when he first had sex with her.
They fooled around nearly every day and everywhere: in his classroom, in a janitor's closet, in the school library, in an auditorium sound booth, in a temporary school building, in his car, at his home, at a motel. Sometimes, using school equipment, he videotaped the encounters.
During those five years, he courted his adult girlfriend, married her and fathered a son.
Nonetheless, he told each girl she was the only one. And he told each girl that his teaching career would be ruined if their relationship were revealed.
But even as Ponis urged secrecy, it sometimes seemed as if half the kids in school knew what Mr. Ponis was up to.
"It was highly rumored among the whole student population," said Ali LeCoq, a friend of the girl whose closeness to Ponis prompted those first suspicions.
Wow, stepped away for a moment and didn't notice the response. I was beginning to think noone was paying attention. I must say I'm glad my little musings got a healthy debate on sexuality going. I'm gonna need some time to respond.
Politics, Religion.... and now Sex.
This blog now officially has it all.
This is odd to me, back in the cold rainy northeast, the PTO/PTA, and the school district board of directors are busily watching for problems, and frequently expose people without trying to cover up, but rather taking the heat to insure complete credibility, or at least as much as can be expected when such events unfold.
Upthread, a lurker named vickie wanted to turn this unseemly business into a slam democrats, and the NEA, but the ones needing a wake-up call are the PTO/PTA groups, and the district directors who should be carefully evaluated, for this is the second enormity to unfold in the Greater Denver suburban area. One would think that Columbine would have awakened everyone to "sick schools syndrome." But too narrow a focus creates openings for this sort of scandal to occur.
It's like saying, "we have all the security we can get, but we weren't paying attention to all the sex....it wasn't violent!"
Also, this exposes the sham of abstinance only programs, AND all the "Iron Hymen" and "Sex is for Fags" type nonsense collides with the reality that humans will find a way to copulate, or have some form of sexual release, no matter how loud or theatrical the fulminations of the local ministers on any given Sunday.
Leaving aside the question of whether a teacher could be screwing around so blatantly with students for years without the knowledge of at least some of his peers, how did the case get started?
The allegations surfaced in April when the girl, who was being treated for anorexia, told her psychiatrist, who notified police.
The girl said Ponis began flirting with her at a graduation party in May 2000, when she was a junior. Their sexual relationship began during her senior year, said investigator Robert Byerly.
The relationship escalated in the fall of 2000, when the two began having oral sex three or four times a week at school in classrooms and during halftimes at basketball games, Byerly said. Many of the encounters took place after hours when Ponis used his master keys to gain entry to the school, he said.
"He knew she was a virgin," Byerly said. "He told her if she ever wanted to gain sexual experience he would help her and would take care of her, not like boys her age."
In January of her senior year, the girl became his student assistant and arranged her schedule so she had no classes between noon and 2 p.m., to allow for lengthy sexual encounters, Byerly said.
The girl said they first had intercourse at his home that January, but she was quickly forced out the door afterward because Ponis feared his roommate would return home, Byerly said.
Yup, so he only had their best interests at heart. So, what has he learned?
Former teacher Kevin Ponis winked several times at his parents and other family members Tuesday as he was handcuffed and led to jail. [snip]
At his sentencing, Ponis apologized for the "grief and pain" his actions caused the victim, two other former students he had sexual relations with, his family and the Dakota Ridge High School community.
"I hold myself fully accountable," he told the court.
But Ponis added that he's "confused" by his conviction after "telling the truth" throughout his trial.
He maintains he believed the victim was 18 - like the other two former students - when he had sex with her. The victim, however, was 17, making Ponis' actions criminal. "I don't understand the legal issues of the case," Ponis told Munch.
Defense attorney Craig Truman said he'll appeal the conviction.
In other words, what's wrong with having sex with your students, even as you're cheating on your new wife, and getting them to block out big chunks of their school days, when they should be perhaps learning something, just so long as they're 18. Whatever happened to "I hold myself fully accountable" meaning you know what you did was wrong and willingly accept the punishment? You'd think in this era of the national championing of renewed personal responsibility....
Oh, right. Never mind.
Politics, Religion.... and now Sex.
This blog now officially has it all.
President Kerry
Where's the Rock N Roll at?
In my high school days I was involved in the local youth orchestra and music school- the conductor and various teachers at my music school routinely held parties where students and faculty drank together. There were always people getting high outside, and once there was some serious skinny-dipping at the conductor's house. Parents would pick up their drunken kids but no one every got reported to police, and it didn't seem to be a big deal. The conductor, by the way, always waited until certain girls were 18 before he made a move, but he definitely cultivated certain attractive ones. We all worshipped him, but he got into trouble years later while teaching at a college for dating freshman girls. By the way, this was like 1978-81. My how times have changed!
Why does MURKA hate women and children??????
"A handful of teachers used their positions to "groom" young female students for eventual sexual relationships, according to a 300-page report of witness statements compiled by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office into accusations against a single teacher.
The investigation resulted in the conviction of former Dakota Ridge teacher and tennis coach Kevin Ponis, who is serving a prison sentence of 11-years to life for having had an ongoing sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student."
I dunno, PK. As the father of a girl who will reach that age in a half-dozen years, I don't relish the thought of some teacher preying on her.
punaise
Agreed. These guys need to leave young girls alone.
I do agree that there is the possibility of exploitation in these instances. That may have been the case here. But the evidence I read suggested only that he should be barred from the teaching profession. In Canada they passed a law stating that it is illegal for an adult "in a position of authority" to sexually coerce a "young person". In Canada a young person is defined as an individual at least 14 years of age but less than 18 (legally you are only a child until you turn 14). How you define coerce is tricky, but then I imagine it's tricky to define what constitutes a threatening statement (hello Tom DeLay!) or to prove insider trading. And what constitutes a position of authority? Look, all I'm saying is that if you take an absolute position on this then you might as well say that cops can't date people who live in their jurisdiction, because it's a confict of interest.
A more sensible way to approach this is to judge each case on its merits. At some colleges, for example, professers are allowed to date students as long as they have no influence over their studies. So a chemistry major could date a professor assigned to, say, the college of fine arts. I think it is different with high school students (although not nearly as much as you might think). I think some modest restrictions could be placed on these relationships, similar to those placed on doctor-patient relationships. I'm not oppossed to regulation (I'm a progressive, after all) but it should be reasonable. Criminal prosecution should only result in the most serious cases of exploitation. Another way to look at it would be through the sexual harrassment prism. An employee can take action against an employer for harrassment. What if parents could file a complaint against an adult in a position of trust for similar acts (they probably already can, I just don't know the details). This would certainly serve as a deterent against the "predators" which certainly are out there. I just feel that criminal penalties should be reserved for the worst offenders. I don't like the way that overly harsh sentences are doled out indiscriminately by the Sex Police.
I don't honestly know what the best system would be, I'm not totally thrilled with what the Canadians have come up with, however, I commend them for trying to grapple with a thorny issue. At least their sex laws appear to be nationally consistent. US law is wildly inconsistent, I know many adults who are ignorant of what their state's laws are on this matter.
Finally, to those of you say you don't like to think of your teenage daughter having "the sex". I can not tell you condescending that comes across. As if I don't have any empathy for young people because I'm not a parent. Being a parent doesn't make you a saint, and parental jealousy is every bit as creepy to me as middle aged men pimping out teenage girls is to you. In fact, I believe that most sexual abuse of young people occurs within the home (in suburban, upper middle class homes perhaps) rather than at the hands of diabolical tennis coaches. I'd like to think that both overprotectionism in fathers and sexual exploitation in men are not dominant traits, but that they are there to some degree in most men and that it is unhealthy I have no doubt. Basically, what I'm saying is kittens become cats. Kittens are clearly more fun than cats, but there's no getting around it. Maybe the idea of your child becoming sexually active is a disturbing thought. I don't like to think of my parents doing it (eeewwwwwwww!) but I know it happens. That's how I got here. It's what happens. It's what people do. It's what people are supposed to do. It's normal. It's healthy. Try telling your kid that. I'll bet you they won't wind up in a motel room with the tennis coach.
This is probably a minority opinion, but...
"and of teachers developing platonic friendships with students that became sexual relationships shortly after graduation. "
I see nothing at all wrong with that. If they're 18 and graduated, there's no age problem and no professional integrity issue, in my eyes.
I just can't take this "evil penis/helpless vagina" bs anymore. It's bad for the species.
President Kerry
I was always sick of the "women should have control over the situation; it's her fault it gets out of hand."
Women were the weaker sex, but we drove men sexually mad - as if they all thought with their dicks!.
How insulting for both genders!
Hey PK, I was with you for the first part of your recent post. You know: thoughful reply, supported by examples from Canada, I see you point, etc.
But you totally lost me when you draw a parallel between parental concern and prudishness. Being concerned about one's daughter's emotional and physical well-being(or one's son's for that matter - mine is 16)does not equate to refuting or ingnoring the young person's sexuality. Hey, we were young and horny once, too. To me and my wife, that's an entirely different issue. We live in Berkeley, where these matters are fairly comfortably talked about.
I just find it creepy and inappropriate for adults to cultivate relationships with teenagers.
"He knew she was a virgin," Byerly said. "He told her if she ever wanted to gain sexual experience he would help her and would take care of her, not like boys her age."
Man does this say it all. I don't know how I missed it.
She was a virgin during her senior year of high school. Why didn't she have a relationship with someone her age by this time - sexual repression.
He would take care of her, NOT LIKE BOYS HER AGE - madonna whore, predator-prey framing of sexual relationships for adolescents, objectification and demonisation of women and female sexuality in general by adolescent males (see predator-prey relationship).
This is what we set ourselves up for with the whole sex is dirty/dangerous/unhealthy message.
Please Please Please think about this for two seconds. Look at how our society differs from other societies when it comes to sexual socialisation. Look at the harm that sexual repression obviously does.
OK. I'm done now. I feel better. Back to the election data, people, the data is imcomplete... but I'll bet my Playboy collection that this is gonna end up making watergate look like a traffic violation.
Ok punaise, I promised I was done. I am. Maybe I got carried away. My apologies. I lack the ability to feel empathy for parents because I've never been one (remember, empathy means you've been there and can relate). It's just this whole thing struck a nerve. See, I have known 16 year olds whose parents were insanely controlling/abusive and unreasonable. Didn't mean to imply that was you. But from what I've actually seen, it's an ugly, ugly thing. I have a hunch it's more prevelent and destructive than people realise. It's kind of my little axe to grind. But I dig what you're saying.
Remember, I not pro-creepy tennis guy any more than NOW is pro-abortion. I just don't like the other side. They are definitely not helping.
But anyway, yea Canada... right on.
I went to HS a mile from this school. Indeed, all of the students that go to Dakota Ridge would have gone to my HS, as DR wasn't built at the time.
At the time, a Sherriff came out to our HS to tell us about the evils of date rape. Unless the law has changed or he was wrong, the age of consent is 16 in CO, in which case the guy did not break any rape laws. From the description of the charges, his crime is not sex, but rather seducing children as a teacher.
I wonder if that's why I had a hard time getting dates? All the students were dating teachers? Nah, I'm just a dork. But I don't trust coaches; too many of them are weird (not all of them, though).
(It's also strange to me to hear this area described as a Republican stronghold. I'm not, nor have I ever been, A Republican. None of my friends were, either. I must have self-selected the good folks.)
PK - it's all good. thx
The age of consent is 16 in 27 states and the District of Columbia, 17 in eight states and 18 in 15 states (at least it was as of 2004). Status as an educator sometimes raises the limit to 18 and/or carries tougher penalties but not always. Also, these laws change all the time and nobody tells anybody. Damn Nazis.
they're not seriously trying to present this is as something new, are they, with this ``grooming'' bullshit? in my high school in a conservative suburban-rural community in the '60s there were two known teacher/and or/coach-student relationships, two known affairs among the faculty (one female-male that broke up two marriages and resulted in their new one; one male-male) and god knows how many rumors about counselor/teacher-student affairs. I'm sure we weren't exceptional in this regard and I doubt it is any worse now than it used to be.
secular - similar at my Bay Area high school in the mid 1970s. There was a serious relationship between junior or senior girl and a "cool" history teacher (he smoked pot and railed against "the man")....but there was always something hush-hush about it.
At my hs there was a young teacher (about 25) who was run off after it was revealed he had shacked up with a former student. She was the Valadictorian and the captain of the drill team. For those unfamiliar with this, a lot of southern schools have them. They're like Rockettes. Generally less exclusive than cheerleaders but basically the same thing. She was smart, well mannered and smokin' H.O.T. He'd apparently been all over her while she was a student, but it was kept quiet. There was no proof that she was under 17 when they began dating, so no charges were filed. Oh, and her dad was a cop. Go figure. At first I defended the guy. "Who could blame him", I said, "who wouldn't have done the same thing". Later, female friends of mine revealed to me what things about his behaviour with them that was less than appropriate. It turns out that he was probably a major creep. But I didn't know that at the time. Don't like to jump to conclusions based on tired stereotypes, but I'm well aware that this has been going on for some time and usually the coach/teachers are less than honourable and decent.
I do think there are worse things a guy could do. It's not like he killed anyone... or rigged an election.
secular they are obviously trying to hype this. you can fool alot of girls and some boys with this abstinence crap, but you can't fool a male teacher who knows better. they are also well equiped to get around any programming that the girls have undergone (manipulation gets easier with experience). so the right must come down on this in order to achieve their sexless utopia. besides, its another massive scare to distract the middle class as they're furiously screwing them out of any wealth they might still possess
A couple of people have already commented on this. But I thought I would continue the thought.
I do not think it is mere coincidence that this school is in the same county, if not same city (Littleton) as Columbine. This is of course a suburban/exurban McMansion community of the nouveau riche. It is also safe to note that in both cases, school administrators allowed a culture to flourish at both schools that contributed to these situations.
While I agree with many posters that the situation described is not so bad, particularly this "grooming" charge. I actually think these people should be commended for respecting the law and their ethical guidelines. The students are 18 and graduate and are fair game for the teachers or for the bartender at Red Robin where they are the hostess.
But I digress. My main point is the pure folly of trying to build and then feigning perfection and affluence in these new McMansion communities. These places are always a facade of lies and I suspect in the next 10 years there will be a slough of books and films about the lies, isolation and scandal of growing up in McMansionville.
Wow 11 years!
I teach, and in our dist. The asst. b-ball coach was dating a player for over a year. When she graduated he moved away with her to college and taught in that town. It has been going on forever, there are at least 5 teachers at the high school who are married to former students. Look at the Seattle Times article Coaches who Prey from above post. Those guys were reprimanded but either kept their jobs, or moved on to new jobs in different cities. One those mentioned in the article teaches and coaches in my dist. The best part is nobody had a clue. He is a very outspoken christian conservative pile of doodoo, he will not even allow his kids to go to public schools even though he and his wife are teachers. Then the article comes out in the paper. You don't think the staff members jaws hit the floor, it was hillarious watching that little conservative pile of crap squirm. They would have loved him in prison!
What puzzles me is that: "... teachers developing platonic friendships with students that became sexual relationships shortly after graduation."
Whether 11 years is excessive or not depends on the parole rules. However, I think that two strikes rule would be appropriate. Authority should not be traded into sexual contests. People can be excused for falling in love, but that does not wash more than once. Even the first time is creepy and a valid ground for dismissal.
My bias: I am against a cult of authority. Sex with authority falls in this range.
Teachers aren't paid enough. Coaches are paid too much.
YEs, now one that's "older" should do impressionable young people. Experienced people should only do experienced people and vice-versa. LOL! What a bunch of crap.
Isn't this a follow-up to the ORIGINAL Bobo's World?
...or is it just that familiar?
Had alot to say yesterday. Upon further reflection, want to clarify. What this guy appeared to be doing was creepy and I'm against that. A thirty-something man should not be going after a 17 year-old virgin. Thats dirty. The virgin part bothers me more than the 17 part. There's just too much thats screwed up here to properly address it all without starting my own blog. I will say only this, I've personally known guys in their 20's who were involved with girls as young as 16 (they weren't teachers or anything like that) and as far as I could tell noone got especially hurt. I also knew a girl who was 17 and still in high school, we worked together and were friends. Noone was going to tell her she couldn't date older men. She wouldn't even rule out dating a guy who was 40. I should point out that she was a tall blonde knockout, relatively mature, bright and rather ambitious. She could've passed for 21 and went clubbing often (didn't seem to have too much trouble getting in with a crappy fake id). I doubt too many of you guys out there would have turned her down. So I'm saying people need to be realistic, while most people don't behave this way, some do. I think you have to consider whether these people should be punished/restricted for their behaviour. Can you prove their actions are reasonably harmful to society. Or are you coming down too hard on their civil liberties. I think in the case of creepy tennis guy, he violated a trust. Taxpayers don't pay his salary so he can get his schwerve on with their daughters. Maybe give him a year or two in jail or probation or both (come down hard on him if he repeat offends). But I'm opposed to draconian laws that seem to criminalise sex. Thats the true purpose of this kind of legislation. Its a stop gap way of criminalising sex (much as raising the drinking age to 21 was an attempt at stop gap prohibition). There is a definite pattern here, just look at how much society has changed since 1980. We're too prohibitive and far too easily tricked and manipulated by a sensationalist media into passing legislation that needlessly deprives individuals of their rights (hello patriot act).
These places are always a facade of lies and I suspect in the next 10 years there will be a slough of books and films about the lies, isolation and scandal of growing up in McMansionville.
Bubb Rubb
And this McMansionville is in Tom Tancredo's (R-CO) rock-solid Republican district, where the SUV's not only retain their Bush/Cheney stickers,
but are now augmented with yellow made-in-China ribbons turned like little Jesus fish, and white sihouettes of sad aborted children standing at their crosses.
Ah yes. Dakota Ridge. An affluent/middle class exurb high school surrounded by the highway link to the Interstate, numerous gleaming new Christian churchs, and a Walmart.
President Kerry - Are you posting from France? You keep spelling behavior wrong. There is no u.
11 years to life too harsh for screwing a 17-year-old? But this isn't about violence or corruption, this is about SEX, dammit! Of course the punishment has to be severe. Sexual pleasure is the most dangerous and insidious element in our God-fearing society. Let this go and what's next? Sex education in the schools? Contraception? We can't have such perversion in our theocracy! Hanging is too good for him! I hope they put him in the stocks for a few days before throwing him in the slammer.
Poor girl. Now that she's been exposed to all those orgasms, how on earth will she ever be convinced to marry a Christian? Another lost soul—er, body.
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