Australian and American case studies

Two cases involving female teachers engaging in alleged sexual relationships with male students have recently made headlines locally and internationally.

In Australia, a 33-year-old teacher at a prestigious Sydney boys' school has been charged with seven offences, one count of indecent assault and six counts of having relations with a child between 16-18 years under special care.

In America, a 24-year-old substitute teacher at a high school admitted to engaging in a months-long sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student and has been charged with the offence of sexual exploitation by a teacher.

Despite both cases sharing some factual similarities, they are markedly different in terms of how the teachers in question have responded to the allegations, particularly in terms of dealing with the media.

As neither teacher has been convicted of the alleged crimes while they await trial, it is unclear whether or not the charges will be upheld. In both cases it would be natural and logical to see the student as the victim given the apparent abuse of authority and trust between staff member and student. However, as demonstrated by the evolution of the American case, the teacher in question sees things differently.

The Australian case

According to media reports, the married teacher allegedly had relations with the male student four times on the school’s campus and twice at her home between January and March this year. The relationship was exposed in September when the student told the School’s counsellor.

Both the teacher and student were involved in extracurricular school activities requiring them to spend time alone, Fairfax reports. The relationship developed over the course of the three months and during this time the teacher and student exchanged text messages and met privately multiple times. The teacher is pregnant although there is no suggestion that the student is the father.

The School’s Headmaster has told the media that "as soon as the school became aware of the allegations, the employee concerned was suspended and forbidden to have any contact with pupils pending the outcome of the matter".

The Headmaster states that the School is now working closely with Police on the matter.

In order to protect the victim, the Court has suppressed the identity of both the student and the teacher. Nonetheless, the name of the School has been released to the media in order to encourage similar victims to come forward.

The teacher was charged with one count of indecent assault and six counts of having relations with a child between 16 and 18 under special care. This matter will come before the court on December 8 this year and the teacher may face jail time if convicted.

To date, she has not faced the media or provided any form of media statement.

The American case

In the American case, former teacher Mary Beth Haglin blames her student for seducing her and “burning her life to the ground.”  Appearing on the national Dr Phil talk show, it is reported that Ms Haglin said the following:

• she is innocent of committing any crime;
• she’s actually the victim in the relationship;
• the student hatched an elaborate plan of romantic seduction, then threatened to “burn her life down” if she ended the relationship.

The teacher reportedly also stated:

• “The student twisted my brain into accepting this relationship. He did so with such intelligence and such an elevated vocabulary that I was completely duped by the whole facade.”
• “We met several times a week, not every time was just to have sex,” she said. “There were times we would sit and talk. I thought in my mind this was some sort of real relationship."
• "He knew that I was vulnerable."

The relationship became public when the teacher and student were spotted by other students in a car. Witnesses took video of the couple and posted it on Twitter. The Cedar Rapids Community School District has banned Haglin from employment in the district, but she continued to work as an elementary school substitute teacher near the end of the last school year “because of a miscommunication,” The Associated Press reported.  She is now working as a stripper.

Haglin’s trial is scheduled to begin on 14 November.  As a result of the Dr Phil interview where she admitted to multiple acts of misconduct, it has been reported that prosecutors have now increased the charges against her and she now faces up to five years in jail.

What are the lessons from these cases?

Although the Sydney teacher has not given any reason for her alleged conduct or any insight into how it apparently occurred, the American teacher's (misguided) disclosures on national TV are interesting in terms of how a teacher, relatively close in age to her student, can end up in a situation where professional boundaries are crossed and serious misconduct occurs.

Unlike the Sydney case where there is around a 17 year age gap between the teacher and the student, the age gap between the American substitute teacher and her student is only around seven years. While it is totally unacceptable and illegal for the teacher to have engaged in the conduct alleged, her view of events, where she portrays herself as the victim, may resonate with teachers who teach students relatively close in age and who, in the final years of school are emotionally, physically and sexually mature. In these circumstances, teachers should be extremely mindful of their professional boundaries, codes of conduct and legal obligations.

In Australia, the legislative reform being implemented across states and territories is resulting in increased obligations for schools to introduce codes of conduct which expressly state the 'do's' and 'don'ts' of staff conduct with students. By requiring schools to train all staff and other members of the school community on such codes, schools are engaging in a form of risk management which is intended to reduce the risk of teachers abusing their authority and behaving inappropriately.  Essentially, in Australian schools, there is no excuse for any adult member of the school community to not understand the difference between appropriate and inappropriate/illegal conduct involving students.

Ms Haglin was a substitute teacher and it is unknown what form of training she may have had on child protection and professional boundaries. However, in Australia, the trend in legal reform is that all staff members undergo some form of training when they start at a school. The term "staff members" can be, and is, interpreted broadly and can include volunteers, external education providers and contractors; all of whom must receive training.

Without doubt, the students are the victims in both the Australian and American cases. But the damage is not limited to the students. The students' families, the teachers' families and the members of each school community are also affected by the alleged behaviour of the two teachers.

How does a school prevent such incidents from occurring?

Clearly one would expect both of the schools that were involved in these matters to have clear policies and procedures on these issues including clear direction on matters such as:

• social media interaction and electronic communications between students and teachers;
• appropriate meetings between students and staff, including leaving classroom doors open, not meeting in private spaces, not meeting outside of the school environment, not visiting students homes etc; and
• clear directions as to which school executive staff teachers should report any concerns about interactions between another teacher and a student (or self-report their own interactions with a student that they are uncomfortable with).

One question that is often worth reflecting upon in situations such as this is: Who knew or saw something that, if reported to a senior staff member at the time, might have altered the outcome for all involved?

Often there are staff members or students who may have seen or heard something but chose not to do anything with the information for want of any ‘hard evidence’. This attitude is sometimes based on a misguided concern for one of the parties involved. Such failures are now beginning to be addressed by legislators around Australia as they seek to mandate the development of a culture of compliance within a school environment as an essential ingredient in child safe organisations.

As recently discussed in the paper presented at ANZELA by James Field, titled “‘Compliance with Current and Future Child Protection Laws – Embedding a Child Protection Culture.  How can this be achieved?’ having a suite of policies on child protection matters is not enough to embed a culture of child protection within a school. Legislators have recognised the importance of school culture in recent changes to laws and regulations concerning child protection in both WA and Victoria. These changes are discussed in previous school Governance articles.

As Field points out, culture can be defined in many ways but a useful definition is “the way we do things when no one is watching”. Field says that “organisations that achieve a high safety level for children are shown to share a fundamental belief that mistakes will happen and their goal is to spot them quickly: “they encourage an open culture where people can discuss difficult judgements and report mistakes so that the organisation can learn from them.”

In practical terms for schools, it means that just having policies in place is no longer sufficient. Action must be taken to support these policies and to develop a culture of child protection.