I highly recommend everyone pick up a copy of Folio Weekly. I snatched one up when I saw on the cover there was a story about Clay County.

The story, I discovered, showed a process within the Clay County school system that disturbs me - for several reasons.

Briefly summarized, a teacher at Fleming Island High School is alleged to have begun a sexual affair with an FIHS 18-year-old student.  An internal school administration investigation concluded that the teacher had violated state ethics for educators. The teacher was suspended by a School Board that didn't know why, before resigning and moving on to teach at a Jacksonville High School.

Isn't that just a little disturbing on quite a few levels?

The story in Folio, the only media that devotes anything other than a cursory effort at covering any important news in Clay County, raised several questions, not the least of which is why the people we entrust with our own children have apparently allowed a sexually aggressive teacher access other people's children?

How about, why was the teacher allowed to resign instead of being fired and reported to the state department in charge of teacher licenses?  I assume there's a good reason for that to be required by law.

Or, why wasn't the School Board informed of the reason the School Superintendent wanted to suspend a teacher at Fleming Island High School? Along those same lines, does the School Board routinely vote to approve the Superintendent's disciplinary recommendations with a total absence of inquiry? Is the School Board the Superintendent's rubber stamp instead of exercising the oversight authority it has?

Finally, there is the gender question. If the gender of the teacher and student been reversed, would the outcome have been the same? If not, is that the standard of behavior we want our School District to allow teachers to have without recourse? And if the situation was handled differently because the teacher in this story was female and the student male, well, that opens itself up to all kinds of debate.

There are probably quite a few questions about the path through our school system this particular incident took.  It wasn't a good path.

No matter what, when there is reasonable evidence to indicate an educator has engaged in appropriate sexual behavior with a student in Clay County, I'd prefer a system and leadership within that system that follows the law and protects everyone's children, instead of just trying to brush the whole thing under the rug.

Michael S. Mann