LITTLE ROCK — Education officials are studying a state Supreme Court decision on sex between teachers and students to determine whether the ruling will affect their ability to fire teachers and revoke their licenses for such activity.
The court on Thursday partially struck down a state law prohibiting sex between a teacher and a person under 21 who is a student at the school where he or she teaches. The law creates an unconstitutional invasion of privacy when applied to a teacher and student who are both 18 or older, the court said.
The court made the ruling in a 4-3 decision reversing former Elkins high school teacher David Waldon Paschal’s conviction of second-degree sexual assault for having sex with a female student who was 18.
The state Department of Education requires public school teachers to abide by a code of ethics that contains a rule requiring a teacher to maintain “a professional relationship with each student, both in and outside the classroom.” A teacher who violates the code can face a variety of sanctions, including revocation of his or her teaching license.
“Whether this Supreme Court opinion affects that, that’s something we’re looking at,” said Seth Blomeley, spokesman for the state Department of Education.
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Over the last couple of years state education officials have received complaints about two or three teachers allegedly having sexual contact with students who were 18 or older, Blomeley said.
He noted that the opinion does not appear to contain any direct reference to the ethics code or the state Professional Licensure Standards Board, which created the code and investigates alleged violations.
The standards board was created by an act of the state Legislature in 2007, and the code went into effect in 2008. Rep. Johnnie Roebuck, D-Arkadelphia, who sponsored the legislation, said she was concerned by the ruling and any possible impact on the code.
“It was our understanding that when you’re still in school, according to case law — and I’m certainly not an attorney, but we thought that students were, I think the legal term is impressionable,” she said.
The Supreme Court’s ruling also raises questions about the authority of school boards to fire teachers who have sex with students 18 or older.
School boards’ policies for teacher conduct typically follow model policies created by the Arkansas School Boards Association. The association’s model policies state in part that it is the duty of employees “to appropriately manage all interactions with students … to ensure that the appropriate staff/student relationship is maintained.”
“We make changes in those policies whenever something changes in state law,” said Suellen Vann, spokeswoman for the association. “We’ll have to see if something will have to be changed (because of the court ruling).”
Sexual contact between a teacher and student at his or her school was added to the definition of second-degree sexual assault by the Legislature in 2003. Former Sen. Jack Critcher of Batesville, who sponsored the legislation, said Friday he did so because he believed the law needed to be “tightened up” to provide more protection to young people.
“If you’re a student and the other person is a teacher, you’re at a disadvantage as an 18-year-old,” said Critcher, now a legislative liaison for the Arkansas Municipal League. “It would be very easy for a teacher to use his or her position to take advantage of an 18-year-old.”
State Sen. Percy Malone, D-Arkadelphia, who serves on the legislative Task Force on Abused and Neglected Children, said Friday he had not read the ruling, but it sounded as if there might be a way to craft a narrower law that would meet Supreme Court scrutiny.
Malone said he believes students are in a vulnerable position in a school setting, even if they are legally adults.
“Someone that has control over their graduation or their grades or their opportunity for success in life, they should not be able to hold that over their head for a sexual relationship,” he said.