Topic : 06/13 Teacher Sex Scandal, Part 2

Very interesting show Friday.   Having a child who was inappropriately touched by a teacher about 6 years ago my views are somewhat biased , but I feel something went on between these two.  The other boy who recanted may or may not be telling the truth but it is not impossible that you'll have this happen in a similar situation.  The children are placed under an incredible amount of pressure when these type situations arise.   Hard to know what to make of the detector results.  Lots of leeway in the interpretation and body dynamics in any given situation.

 

Here are some of the problems encountered when a child reports a teacher:

In the local school hearings and any resulting trial, the testimony of the adults will always carry more weight than the child.

School administrators will attempt to do an initial investigation in hopes it is a false accusation but inevitably will botch the investigation and create inconsistencies with the reporting due to non professional interviewing skill sets.  False accusations do occur, but ALWAYS let the police professionals do the interviewing.

It is very easy to trip up children on the exact facts  (timing, etc).  That defense along with the revenge for bad grades, etc is the tried and true method of getting these bad teachers off the hook.

If the teacher takes the inappropropriate behavior just shy of a sex act and executes actions with no or limited witnesses, it is very hard to prove anything.   True predators know how to pick the right victims and how far they can cross the lines before getting caught.

The local or state hearing officer findings (in our case) were grossly incomplete and were used to influence the trial judge...

The national teacher's union (NCAE) legal support of represented teachers is difficult to overcome.

If the teacher has been doing inappropriate acts for many years, older victims (especially with families) will admit they were victims but will refuse to testify because they don't want the attention or want their family to find out.

 

I'm not anti Teacher.  I have a mother who taught for 30 years and have worked in a volunteer in the school system for 12 years with some very good teachers.

The one bad seed we had our experience with had 9 counts against him and the one count that did go to trial were dismissed by the judge.  

 

Another huge problem is with young high school coaches who think their athletes are fair game.

This teacher crossed the line of professionalism on many accounts.  Phone calls to students homes....rides in her car.........having students at her house.......I think I even heard that the boy spent the night after moving the piano......coded messages?????  What is that??????

 

She crossed the line professionally.   Her job as an educator should be limited to discussions within the school campus concerning the French/English lessions etc. 

 

Having crossed the line....she expsosed HERSELF and she is resposible for that.  Let's hope she has learned from this...I am not sure she has....her history of marrying her high school teacher is not the best situation to aid her in understanding the student/teacher boundary. 

 

I agree with Dr. Phil in that her reaction to this incident is strange.  Focusing of the specifics vs the Big Picture of what these boys are saying.  I give credit to the boy who actually appeared on the show to talk about this embarrassing situation.

 

I never heard from the teacher as to why she thinks the boys lied????????  What was their motive or way to gain from this.....

I usually know what side I believe at the end of these shows, but on this one I am confused.

My opinions just from how they acted, the teacher seemed to be being deceptive while the student seemed honest. She didn't give him any eye contact while he maintained eye contact almost throughout. She also seemed to side step quite a bit. As far as the boy hemming and hawing as one writer pointed out, I don't think that shows guilt. How can anyone judge how someone is SUPPOSED to act on a television show with Dr. Phil? This wasn't a private session or anything. It was in front of hundreds of people.

As far as the lie detector test goes, there is a reason why these are NOT admissable in court. It's because they are unreliable. Why would one test show he was being honest and the next show he was lying if they were reliable?

I'd like to hear more about this case in the future.

On a side note, I never miss the show!

The 2nd kid that accused her of lying is a liar himself.  He acted like a soap opera acting out.  Did you notice how he kept swallowing everytime he lied, kind of like my ex did when he always lied to me.  Also we have a guy at work that does something that he knows was wrong and he cant admit it.  I hope this kid gets what he deserves in life and I hope the teacher regains her employment and happiness.  It is just  sad that you are guilty even if you have never been proven guilty. 

Dr. Phil,

I watched the last 2 segments of your show about the teacher sex scandal and was so frustrated that I had to write. Every time the polygraph test result was revealed, that teacher actually smiled like she had just won the contest. Had I been in her shoes, being accused of what she is accused of, I would have felt sadness at what could possibly compel these young men to fabricate such stories, not elation at winning. What does she think she won - does she think that we all believe that she was wrongly accused - because I don't. I think it took a tremendous amount of courage for Matt to come on the show and share the things he did and her reaction to his claims and her red herring arguments were ludicrous. And when Matt suggested the fact that the teacher married her high school teacher, she asked if that made her a pedophile. Dr. Phil, why didn't you clarify that the point he was attempting to make was that if she had no problem as a student being involved with one of her teachers, why would we not believe that she could as a teacher, find personal contacts with a student to be acceptable, sexual or otherwise? If Matt lied, and I don't believe he did, shame on him. And, shame on her for even allowing this situation to go as far as it has and if she thinks we believe her  SIJWYWFM (sometimes I just wish you were funnier Matt) interpretation, she is sadly mistaken. Wonder how long it took her to come up with that sorry substitute. And, because I am the kind of person who has always stood up for what I believe, at great personal sacrifice at times, I applaud Matt for his courage. Appearing on the show in itself could not have been easy, sharing his personal story most certainly was not easy - nor did he benefit from it. And as a teacher, one should conduct themselves in a manner that is beyond reproach and this teacher continues not to do that with  her continuous exploitation of this entire episode. Lady, I find your actions reprehensible and I am not buying your lies and attempts to exonerate yourself, any more than the school district did.

 

 Hi Dr. Phil:
     I am writing to you as a Mother first, of three boys, who were allegedly sexually molested at the ages of 5, 7 and 9.  I am also writing to you as a teacher.  First, I would like to say that if there was anyone on the stage I did not believe it was that teacher.  On this episode when the young man came out to talk she asked for a note pad to write "all his lies down on" yet all she wrote down was that he changed the time of the kiss and what they talked about when she masterbated him.  Come on if someone was saying those things about me and they were not true I would not need you to say that none of it happened.  Yet, she never said that until you prompted her.  Yes, they flunked polygraph tests, but they also passed them when it was closer to the incident.  Why did she not submit to one?..I think that was huge. If she was telling the truth she should have passed, yet she said her lawyer would read signs that weren't there, well what about reading things on the boys that weren't there.  If your lawyer tells you it's going to give the wrong reading because of this and that, then it can do it on the boys.
     My biggest thing is - what 21 year old man is going to come on national TV 6 years after the incident and say these things if they are not true.  If he was making it up why not go for the whole picture.  Why not say they had sex and she wore nasty lingerie.  He didn't, because he was telling the truth.  He got little details wrong or different then court, but not major details, the incident still stayed the same.
      His comment about her marrying her high school teacher should have been persued.  He was saying if it was okay in your mind to marry a teacher and have relations with a teacher, then in your mind you've crossed that boundary and why not give your students the pleasure of having relations with their teacher.
That should have been persued more.
     Last, what is she thinking : driving students alone in her car, we all know not to do that!!  Having a whole class of boys spend the night.  The French class sleepover was all boys...WHY?  Writing those notes.  That right there showed that she was flurting with her students.  And what a crock what she said they meant.  It did not make any sense.  Asking boys over to her house.  I think she crossed the boundary way too many times.
     Being a teacher it would be devastating to be wrongly accused.  I don't know if that was the case here.  I think she is lucky she had a mis-trial.  These women that are getting off so easy for doing this to young boys infuriates me.  This is rape just as if a man did it to a young girl.  If it was a man on you stage (and I can 't believe I am taking the male side right now.)  But if it was a man and that was a little girl everyone in the audience would have believed her and said he shouldn't be anywhere near the school, but because it is a woman ... it's "boys will be boys, they have wild hormones and he only wishes that's what happened."
    There was something about her...I think she is guilty.

  I watched both the teacher sex scandal epidodes and am apalled at how this teacher lost her job and reputation over untrue allegations.  The only thing she did that was questionable was writing incrypted notes to other students.  (Which I have to say is childish in the extreme, if not flirtatious.)  I am currently a substitute teacher and am a certified K-12 art educator (hopefully I'll eventually secure a job in my own discipline.)  Both my parents were high school teachers before they retired.  It seems in the education world any allegation of inpropriety with a student and teacher is a career death sentence, no matter whether the allegations are proven to be false.  It's too easy for students to ruin an educator's career simply by making up stories.  It is always the educator that suffers the consequences from these lies, not the liar.  Many students develop crushes on their teachers.  I myself, had a crush on a male history teacher my freshman year in high school and flirted with him constantly.  I knew it was fruitless fun then, and my teacher always maintained his professionalism.  I would never of jeopradized his job though by making false accusations or putting him in a situation where he would be career compromised.  If you really like an educator you wouldn't want them to lose his or her job because of your childish fantasies.  Now that I am a substitute teacher in the same school I graduated from, I have seen my old teacher and subbed for his new wife.  I like them both and we have laughed about my freshman year antics (wrote "love you" on my eyelids and blinked at him in class-got idea at time from first Indiana Jones movie.)  This is how most teenage crushes on teachers should end.  Harmless flirtations on the part of the student, maintained proffesionalism from the instructor with good humor, and ultimately moving on with teenage and adult years with humorous memories of this teenage rite of passage.  I have no sympathy for students who would make up lies about a teacher that will ruin their career permanetly merely through the association of this kind of accusation.  You can never live down these types of allegations, it is career suicide.  I never put my self in a situation where my interaction with students would be subject to scrutiny.  My relationship with them ends in the classroom, and I do not associate with students outside of school.  My personal life is completely seperate and I have no relationships with any students male or female outside of school.  It is a shame educators must be so paranoid, but it is an unfortunate reality and consequence of our career choice.  I think the French teacher in this case, should sue the school board for her treatment as well as the students who defamed her character and later withdrew their accusation or were proven to be lying about it for their own personal reasons.

I believe the boys are telling the truth.  You wonder why so many young people don't come foward about being abused.   They think people with power can get away with stuff like this.  So I believe the boys. 

I am sorry - this seems like such an oxymoron. You want your children to tell you if this  happens, yet you have no problem suggesting that these children (young men) have lied. We are all so quick to jump to conclusions and we are all so quick to judge others. We don't know what we would do in that situation because we are not there.

I would have liked one question to have been asked regarding the moving of the piano.  Since the husband was also a teacher in the same high school, why couldn't he have asked a male student in his class to come and help move it?  Common sense would be not to have anything look inappropriate when it comes to having any outside relationship with a student.  As a viewer I would have liked for her to take ownership in the fact that she did not act appropriate. 

That said, I did have a hard time believing the young man.  Feet not planted firmly on the floor, unable to verifiy that he indeed went back to move the piano, eyes seemed firmly fixed on whatever he was looking at.  I think there was deception in his statements.