Teachers and school staff occasionally are charged with sexual misconduct in the Washington area, but the issue is rarely discussed publicly.
The subject has been raised twice this month, after a handful of incidents over the past several years. First, police arrested Robert “Pete” Peterson, a teacher at Sidwell Friends School, a private school where the Obama daughters attend, on charges of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy. A week later, Fast Company magazine published a quote by D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee saying that the firing of 266 teachers in October included one who “had had sex with students.”
Both Sidwell and D.C. Public Schools said the accused teachers were put on leave immediately, but news of their investigations took months to come out. Inquiries from the D.C. Council about the identity of the D.C. teacher have been met, so far, with silence.
In the past two years, three teachers in Fairfax County have pled guilty to charges related to sexual misconduct. Rodney Bower, a former teacher at Gunston Elementary in Lorton, pled guilty to the sexual battery of an 11-year-old whom he tutored. Richard Forsythe, a former teacher at Herndon Middle School pled guilty to taking indecent liberties with a 17-year-old girl. And Matthew McGuire, a former teacher and coach at Chantilly High School, pled guilty to attempted indecent liberties with a minor, and soliciting sex on the Internet.
A wrestling coach at Fairfax’s Woodson High School was arrested last summer in an Internet sex sting, and a special education teacher at Hayfield Secondary School was arrested in September after police found her intoxicated in her car with a 15-year-old boy with whom she allegedly had an ongoing relationship.
In Maryland, Mark Jackson, a former ROTC instructor at Prince George’s Flowers High School, pled guilty in August to a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old student. In Montgomery County, a gym teacher at Gaithersburg Elementary was charged in early 2008 with sexual abuse of a minor.
“Every once in awhile we get something like this, but it’s not common,” said Fairfax schools spokesman Paul Regnier. “If the police are involved and investigating a crime, [the teacher] is likely to be put on administrative leave.”
Amy Carlini, spokeswoman for Alexandria City Public Schools, cited the rule of privacy laws until the teacher has been charged with a crime. Serious allegations against teachers, she said, arise in Alexandria no more than twice each year, and don’t always concern sexual misconduct.
“It gets to be a pretty tricky topic to talk about,” Carlini said.
