When former middle-school teacher Mary Kay Letourneau made headlines in 1997 for being accused and then convicted of having sex with a 12-year-old male student, such cases — especially ones in which a female teacher was the perpetrator — were nearly unheard of.
Fast-forward 16 years, and instances of female teachers accused of having sex with students and engaging in other inappropriate actions saturate the media.
A quick search online turns up dozens of cases of school staff members from around the country who have been accused of having sexual relations with students. There have been at least 10 just from this summer alone — and that’s not including Rachelle Gendron, the 27-year-old Fitchburg charter school sex-education teacher charged with raping a 14-year-old male student last week.
Are more cases like these occurring, or are more just being reported by victims and witnesses?
Thomas J. Cottle, a well-known professor of education at Boston University, said it is a combination of both.
There are laws in place now, he said, which require teachers to report sexual misconduct by their colleagues. In the past, Cottle said, many teachers and administrators did not want to ruin the reputations of their fellow teachers, and parents were wary of public embarrassment.
“Fortunately, these profound changes in the way the majority of Americans look at sexuality and the care of a child have changed so much for the better,” he said.
Still, society tends to view sexual-abuse situations and other crimes perpetrated by women differently than they do those by men, said Cottle.
There is a degree of shock when the perpetrator is a woman, he said, because they are often held to a higher standard than men, in the sense that they are “supposed” to be natural caretakers. There is also the traditional view of males as predators and females as prey, Cottle said.
Todd Farchione, a research assistant professor in psychology at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders and a clinical psychologist, agreed.
Because a large majority of sexual predators are men, he said people find it unusual when a woman is the perpetrator. Some even question whether a man can actually be raped by a woman, Farchione added.
“I think a lot of society has this preconception, this idea of men as being much more willing participants in sexual relationships,” he said. “I think it’s a misconception.”
The idea of the male being “unable to be raped” spawns from a narrow conception of sexuality and the idea of rape as only being penetration, Farchione said.
When a younger male student becomes sexually involved with an older female teacher, the student and his peers may view it as a conquest. They may see it as “he got lucky” and be “high-fiving” him in the hallway, Farchione said.
“Is he seen by his peers as having done something good? I’m not sure what the take is,” he said. “If they see it that way, it’s unfortunate, because they’re not appreciating the problem here.”
Cottle said it all comes back to the double standard of how society views men and women.
“We can’t believe the prey becomes the predator,” Cottle said.
“Children are always prey,” he added. “They are victims of anybody that has any kind of power.”
Whether an older female teacher is preying on a younger male student, or an older male teacher preys on a younger female student, it is still a terrible abuse of power, Cottle said.
Gendron, of Fitchburg, was indicted on charges of enticement of a child under 16 years old and five counts of rape aggravated by age difference. The charges carry a state-mandated 10-year sentence.
Gendron pleaded not guilty. She has been fired from her job at North Central Charter Essential School, where she worked as a health- and sex-education teacher for five years.
Investigators conducted forensic studies on Gendron and the boy’s cellphones, uncovering text messages between the teacher and student with photos of them in various states of undress with genitals and breasts exposed.
Even if the 14-year-old boy in the Fitchburg case eventually comes out and says that he wanted this inappropriate relationship with his teacher, he is not in the right mind to make that decision because of his age and level of maturity, Farchione said.
“He’s probably not going to fully appreciate until later in life when he comes to the point that he understands he was taken advantage of in that way,” he said. “It’s really a betrayal. It’s a flagrant sort of violation of trust, is what it is.”
Farchione believes school districts need to do more to reduce the chances of inappropriate relationships developing between teachers and students. He said teachers need training on the moral and ethical issues that come with being in a position of power over others.
While some local schools offer such training, others do not.
Ashburnham-Westminster Superintendent of Schools Ralph Hicks said his district does not train new teachers and other employees on boundaries and inappropriate relationships. He said he does not believe the district should have to tell teachers not to have sex with students.
“It’s kind of like telling somebody not to run in front of a speeding train,” he said. “Common sense tells you don’t do that with your students.”
While Fitchburg Superintendent of Schools André Ravenelle said his district does not offer any sort of boundaries training, he said the School Committee is developing a policy for employees on digital communication and social networking with students.
Leominster Superintendent of Schools Jim Jolicoeur said his district has a policy that addresses the appropriate use of social media. New teachers also receive training on maintaining professional relationships with students, he said.
“When you have teachers friending specific students, or vice versa, students friending teachers, primarily on Facebook, it just really starts to kind of move over the line of the teacher-student relationship that is traditionally there in the classroom, when people are starting to communicate after hours,” Jolicoeur said.
Leominster teachers are not allowed to be friends with current students on social networking sites. Any e-contact with students must be through the district’s computer and telephone system, and teachers are only allowed to give out their private cell and home phone numbers with approval of the school’s principal.
According to a 2004 U.S. Department of Education report, “Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature,” nearly one in 10 students suffer some form of sexual abuse from educators and other school employees during their school careers, from lewd comments to physical contact.
The study found abusers are often people that students most like and parents most trust, especially in elementary schools.
“The educators who target their elementary school children are often professionally accomplished and even celebrated,” the report found. “Particularly compared to their non-abusing counterparts, they hold a disproportionate number of awards.”
Being a good educator is a path to children, especially for those targeting elementary and younger middle-school students. At the late middle- and high-school level, the study found that “the initial acts are somewhat less premeditated and planned and more often opportunistic, a result of bad judgment or a misplaced sense of privilege.”
The report looked at several studies from different areas of the country that found widely varying percentages of male versus female teachers charged with sexual misconduct, ranging from only 4 percent female to 20 percent female. Each of these was based on an examination of public records. In studies that directly asked students about abuse, 57 percent reported male offenders while 43 percent reported female offenders.
Those abused ranged from 54 percent to 77 percent female and 23 percent to 46 percent male. Same-sex misconduct ranged from 18 percent to 28 percent of reported cases, with on average slightly more male-on-male misconduct than female-on-female.
Despite laws outlining reporting requirements regarding abuse, advocacy group Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation found that a typical school sexual offender will have worked in a minimum of three school districts before they are reported or punished — and that more cases of abuse tend to come out in the summer time because students find the courage to report it once they are not facing their abuser every day.
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