Word: florida
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...stricter hiring processes for teachers - the kind of psychological and polygraph testing, for example, that police are subject to - and they have complained that school boards and teachers' unions have blocked legislative efforts to more effectively ferret out potential or actual abusers. But Mark Pudlow, spokesman for the Florida Teachers Association, the state's major teachers' union, insists the group is doing its part to attack the problem and raise teacher awareness. At the same time, he points out, unions have an obligation to help teachers who are themselves victims of bogus accusations, which is also a problem. "There needs...
...that somehow it isn't as harmful for a boy to be seduced by a woman as it is for a girl to have sex with a man. In fact, it's not uncommon in the wake of news like Hernandez's arrest to hear morning-radio jocks in Florida declare congratulatory high-fives for the boys...
...should Florida seem to be experiencing an especially high number of such cases? Are those women, and for that matter, the hormonally charged boys they target, somehow egged on by the state's more sexually relaxed atmosphere, with its sultry climate and scantily clad beach culture? (California also has a high rate of teacher sexual misconduct.) Or are Floridians simply reporting more cases like Hernandez's? It is a crime in Florida, as in most states, not to report such cases, but perhaps the tabloid publicity of the Lafave case has prodded Sunshine State denizens to be more vigilant...
...might also be engendering more cases. As potential female predators see more and more headlines about teachers like themselves bedding boys, it can seem like more acceptable behavior in their eyes - especially when they see that offenders like Lafave get relatively light sentences. (That might be changing, however: a Florida judge recently slapped a two-year prison term on a 28-year-old female teacher in Pensacola convicted of unlawful sexual activity with a 15-year-old male student...
...True enough. But for the moment, Florida seems more concerned with the growing number of valid complaints. (Jacksonville alone saw two female teachers arrested last month.) So it's no surprise that a Florida Congressman, U.S. Representative Adam Putnam, recently co-introduced a bill, the Student Protection Act, to set up a scholastic version of the national sex-offender database and prevent teachers like Lafave from getting classroom jobs in other districts or states. Whether or not the legislation passes, it's a sign of the emotional turmoil that women like her have wrought in their communities...