Teachers become criminals when they have sex with students

Since when did the nation's universities include criminal investigation coursework in their education degree programs?

Right. Never.

Teachers teach. School administrators administrate. Police investigate.

Granite City School District 9 Superintendent Jim Greenwald said a teacher had a relationship with a recent high school graduate. The teacher is resigning.

Problem solved? Nope.

Granite City Police are not investigating, but they should be. Even if the student is old enough to consent, there is potential for coercion or influence of someone in authority having sex with a teen. Anyone in education noticed this #MeToo thing that is exactly about using power over someone to gain sex?

And the teacher is free to move on to another school district, and possibly another teen. And then another.

This is not a problem unique to Granite City by a long shot. We saw a predator continue in Freeburg for decades because school leaders were allowed to handle the case instead of cops. A recent Chicago Tribune investigation uncovered 430 reports that Chicago Public Schools staff sexually abused, assaulted or harassed students since 2011. More than half were deemed credible by the school district's internal Law Department.

State Rep. David McSweeney, a Republican from the Chicago suburbs, introduced House Bill 5914, which could do much to end the secrecy that allows teachers to continue preying on students for sex. His bill would make it a crime for an authority figure to have sex with a student, would give the state information on credible cases as well as results of criminal background checks, would require police to report a teacher's arrest to the school district, would take teachers out of the classroom while they are being investigated and would allow personnel records to be shared with other school districts.

The bill would be a good start, but there is a simple change that doesn't require a new law. When principals and superintendents first hear a teacher crossed the line with a student, their next action should be to call in the professional investigators: Call the cops.

This story was originally published June 19, 2018 at 3:33 PM with the headline "Teachers become criminals when they have sex with students."