In recent weeks, we have heard a worrying amount of news reports about female teachers engaging in inappropriate relationships with their students. First, there was the married teacher who purchased drugs for and had a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy; then, a religious studies teacher was prosecuted for sleeping with a 17-year-old; and, just earlier this week, it transpired that an Arizona educator had performed a sex act on a boy who was just 13 years of age.
Needless to say, it's a widespread problem - and more cases of statutory rape between teachers and students are still emerging.
Last week, a former teacher in Ohio pleaded guilty to criminal charges after having a child with a student whom she had legally adopted.
Laura Lynn Cross, a 37-year-old woman who used to teach English at the Buchtel High School in Ohio, admitted to three counts of sexual battery in court last Friday. The victim in question is a young man, whom Cross originally became sexually involved with back in 2012 or 2013 - at which time he was just 15 or 16-years-old.
Cross' relationship with the boy apparently began when she invited him to use her swimming pool. From that point, the pair began regularly sleeping together, despite him being a legal minor. Matters were complicated even further when, in 2015, the teacher resigned from her post at the school and asked the boy's mother if she could become his legal guardian.
The English teacher apparently stated that she wanted to "mentor" the child, and was subsequently granted partial custody. The couple then moved in together.
In June of that year, however, the teen's mother filed a police complaint about Cross' involvement with her son. At first, no criminal charges were filed. But when authorities later learned that Cross had given birth to a baby fathered by her former student, they had no choice but to pursue the matter.
The boy's father, who did not want to be named, voiced his disgust over the situation to WEWS-TV. "First of all, she’s a schoolteacher," he said. "To get aroused by a child, basically you have to be a sick individual."
He also claimed that he had raised concerns with the school and the police as early on as 2012 (though some sources are saying that the relationship did not begin until 2013), but no action was taken against Cross.
"It was a straight failure from the system. From the school and definitely from the police," the father said. "I was told by the school that she had a 'hold' on him and he was not cooperating so basically they can't do nothing with it."
Though some have tried to argue that the boy voluntarily entered into the relationship, the law states that he was too young to give consent to anything of a sexual nature. Plus, as Cross was the teen's English teacher when she first pursued him, she had a duty of care that she obviously failed to fulfill.
Cross is set to be sentenced on May 24th.
