Holly Hatcher Brings to Light Teachers Having Sex with Students

Teachers having sex with a student is not a recent happening. It has been going on for years, even centuries. Male teachers with female students, female teachers with male students and even homosexual relationships have been reported throughout the ages. What is so unsettling is the fact that it seems to be more prominent now. Why? It is because the media and Internet have made this "news" more global and it reaches many, many more people?

Have these urges always been present and just now becoming more public? The ultimate shock is the relationship with a female teacher and a young male student to most people. Most recently in the news, Holly Hatcher, a High School teacher in Gallatin, Tennessee, has been charged with 3 counts of statutory rape, presumably and allegedly with one of her students. The tale of Ms. Hatcher was announced on October 24, 2007. This saga is by no means a new one.

Probably the most famous case in recent years was the case of Mary Kay Letourneau and her sixth grade lover/student,Vili Fualaau. She was 34 and her lover was 12 at the time. Even with losing her husband, 4 children, her teaching position, credentials and serving a six month sentence for rape, she still could not unseal the bond she had with him. After breaking court orders for seeing him, she was sentenced to another 7 ½ years in prison. Although she had been in prison, she still managed to have two babies fathered by Vili. Most recently, it was announced the Latourneau and Fualaau have become engaged and are keeping their marriage date a secret.

A high profile case in the news recently has been the Delaware teacher, Rachel L. Holt, a 34-year-old elementary science teacher who has been allegedly charged with raping her 13 year old student 28 times in a torrid weeklong sexfest. What gives this even more of a sick twist is the fact she invited one of the victim's classmates to come and watch, after giving the students beer.

There is another teacher/student sex scandal case in Alabama concerning Sharon Rutherford, 32-year-old teacher at Coffeeville High School. She has been charged with solicitation of murder and two counts of enticing a child for immoral purposes. Having sex with two minors under the age of 16 was not enough for this woman; she allegedly tried to recruit one of them to murder her husband.

Let us not forget the 2004 case in Tampa, Florida, concerning Debra Beasley Lafave. Lafave turned herself in after police had released the alleged details of her relations with a then, 14 year old student. Even though she was married, Lafave and her 14-year-old student allegedly had intercourse and oral sex on numerous occasions.

Are there common threads among these young women, which make these circumstances happen? Educated, professional, married women who are supposed to be upstanding, moral and role models for our youth, making such decisions?

Only time will tell what happens with these cases and with the women, students and families involved. It is evident that through the local, state and national levels, the laws to protect minors are being enforced.