High School Teacher, Accused of Sex With Boy 16, Allowed to Keep Working at School Because Mom Was Superintendent - Carrie O'Connor, Dale Clark

Apparently in Georgia it's okay to continue to work as a guidance counselor at Montgomery High School even if you are being investigated by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a student. Well, at least if your mom's the superintend ant. At least, that appears to be the case for Carrie O'Conner who may still be on the payroll at MHS despite being under investigation since March and under a cloud of rumors about an alleged affair since January. What did the school do when they got a hold of these allegations? They transferred the boy, 16, to another school, of course! Here's more from WTOC:

An investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation ended with 34-year-old Carrie O'Connor being arrested and indicted on sexual assault charges involving a 16-year-old student. The arrest happened Monday night, but the investigation started back in March.
Rumors of an affair between the teenage boy and the guidance counselor have been swirling for most of the year and the GBI was called into investigate. Now, some are questioning how the school district has handled the case.
Rumors about the alleged sexual misconduct started to swirl back in January. In March, calls came to WTOC, so we contacted the GBI who said they were investigating and would have something in a week. Four months passed and an arrest happened yesterday. "All we were after was the truth," Posey said.
Posey and many other concerned parents are raising questions since O'Connor is still working at the school. Some think she should have been put on paid leave until the issue is resolved. Instead, according to a letter from principal Smith to the parents of the 16-year-old boy, the student was dismissed from the high school and assigned to a different school to prevent any and all contact between the boy and O'Connor as requested by the GBI.
The parents refused and their lawyers sent a letter back to the principal demanding he be re-instated, which he was the next day. But there's more. The guidance counselor's mother is also the Montgomery County School District superintendent Dale Clark. "Bear in mind the mother-daughter relationship," Posey said. "She cannot come to a just decision on that."

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Teacher Caught in "Operation Jail Bait" Used Web Cam to Expose Genitals - Joel Cupps

Teachers just seem to be draw to these online sting operations like a moth to a flame, don't they? You'd think after a while some of them would at least SUSPECT that the 13-year-old girl at the other end of the chat was really a 50-year-old, fat, male cop . . . but no. Here's more on the latest one from Tampa Bay's 10:

Pasco County teacher is behind bars charged with two counts of soliciting sex acts from a minor. The statewide sting called "Operation Jail Bait" used undercover detectives posing as teenagers. According to police, 29-year-old Joel Cupps, who taught third, fourth and fifth grades at Trinity Oaks Elementary School, was caught using a web cam to expose his private parts to a person he believed was a minor.
"We're very shocked and saddened. It was quite a difficult surprise to swallow," said Allison Hoskins, Principal at Trinity Oaks Elementary School. The teacher has since resigned. He taught at the school for two years. He was also a teacher at Chasco Elementary from 2005 - 2006, and Dr. Mary Giella Elementary in 2005.
"He made a full admission to the acts and admitting to communicating to what he believed were children over the internet," said Lt. Mike Baute from the Attorney General's Office.
Citrus and Pasco County detectives worked on the sting after they realized they were investigating the same person. "They just surrounded the house, came from the back and front, pulled up in a garbage truck and everything. There were just officers everywhere," said neighbor Isaac Rios, who witnessed police raiding Cupp's New Port Ritchey home on Thursday morning.

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Teacher Maggie Laughlin, 23, Arrested for Alleged Sexual Relationship With 9th Grade Boy

UPDATE: Maggie Laughlin pleaded guilty on August 13 to having illegal sexual conduct with a student this year and faces up to 18 months in prison when she is sentenced later this month. (Cleveland.com)
EARLIER STORY: The school year can't end soon enough for some principals, can it? According to police the last two weeks of school at Shore Junior High School in Mentor, Ohio were pretty special for one 15-year-old boy in first year teacher Maggie Laughlin's math class. Authorities claim sex acts between the two took place each morning--8 to 10 times during the last two weeks of class--in her room before school started just before school got out in early June. Who blew the whistle? Sounds like the mother of the victim's ex-girlfriend. Hell hath no fury like a 9th grade girl scorned. Oh, and Laughlin might have gotten away with it because she wasn't coming back next year to Shore: she was moving to Michigan this summer with her fiancé to take a new job and plan a July wedding. Oops. That's likely going to be postponed 5-6 years.
At right, Maggie Laughlin's mug shot picture. Here's more from WKYC - link includes video clip!

Maggie Laughlin, 23, entered no plea at her arraignment in Mentor Municipal Court and was taken to the Lake County Jail. She faces one count of sexual battery and one count of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor.

Bond was set at $200,000 or $100,000 for each count. Laughlin will have to post 10 percent. If convicted, she could face up to six and a half years in prison.

School officials say Laughlin resigned her position with the district on June 6 after spending less than a year in the school system. Mentor Police Chief Dan Llewellyn said that, when arrested at her Willowick home Wednesday night, Laughlin admitted to some of the details of the charges against her.

Laughlin had accepted a new teaching position in Michigan where she planned to move with her fiancé after a planned July wedding.

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Female Teacher, 39, Accused of Sex With Boy, 17 - Kelly Bartz, Rocky Mount High School

School's out for summer, but that doesn't keep the cops from investigating all the alleged teacher/student hook-ups during the past academic year. In fact, the police are probably glad to have the extra time to work on the backlog of complaints. This time we have a rather attractive 39-year-old, Kelly Bartz, an English teacher at Rocky Mount High School. She's been arrested on charges of sexual activity with a student by a teacher. (Could you have "sexual activity with a student by another student?) Most interesting part of the story appears to be that the "victim" in question here reportedly told his mother back on December of 2007 that he was dating a teacher but she brushed it off as a joke. Ha, ha, ha. Yeah, that makes sense to everyone, doesn't it? At right, Kelly Bartz' mug shot picture.
Here's more on the story from The Rocky Mountain Telegram:

The mother of the Rocky Mount High student said she believes the relationship between Bartz and her son began early in the school year when her son was still 17. The mother said her son mentioned around December that he was seeing a teacher, but she brushed it off as a joke. Then she began to notice changes in her son's grades and sports, she said.
"I feel that because of (Bartz's) actions it has caused him to fall back, and he didn't pass his grades," the mother said, adding she didn't know if her son would enroll at Rocky Mount High during the upcoming school year. "This has caused a tremendous amount of stress on the whole entire family, and I feel like his downfall is because of this whole situation."
The mother said she approached Assistant Superintendent of Administrative Services Tommy Finch about the situation in May or June. The central office told her they would take action after Bartz was charged, the mother said.

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