BEDFORD (WSLS10) – Three hundred sixty-three teachers in the Commonwealth have lost their teaching license over the past 15 years.
More than half of which was revoked for something most parents never dream would happen, when a teacher chooses to have a sexual relationship with one of their students.
Recommended Videos
Child sexual abuse, propositioning sex from a child via computer, inappropriate touching, sodomy, indecent exposure are just a few of the unthinkable acts against children detailed in a document WSLS10 obtained from the Virginia Department of Education.
In the past fifteen years 18 Southwest Virginia school districts have pulled licenses from thirty-six teachers for sexual misconduct.
The most recent happened in January when a Roanoke City middle school principal was convicted of having sex with a student.
It's the city's third case. Unfortunately, that's not uncommon.
Lynchburg City schools have fired three teachers for sexual misconduct.
Montgomery County has fired four teachers. Smyth County has revoked two teaching licenses for sexual misconduct. Roanoke County has revoked one. Campbell County revoked two. Grayson County has revoked one. Buena Vista revoked two teaching licenses. Floyd County revoked one. Franklin County revoked two licenses. Wythe County revoked two licenses. Bath County has one reported case that ended in a revoked license. Giles County revoked one as well.
The district with the most revoked licenses is Bedford.
It revoked the licenses of seven teachers for sexual misconduct for children.
The details are hard for many people to imagine. The cases listed involve sex with teenagers, sodomy, child pornography and even soliciting some children to make porn.
Gary Hostutler is the chair of the Bedford School board.
"You read about these cases all of the time. It's sickening. It's an embarrassment when it happens in Bedford County," Hostutler said. "It's always very disturbing."
He's dealt with all of the cases, reports he says are hard to hear.
"We just can't have that. When they crossed the line. They cannot be working in our school system," Hostutler said.
Also familiar with the cases is Capt. Mike Miller with the Bedford County Sheriff's office.He says the high number of cases do not reflect poorly on the school. Instead, he says it shows the schools and the offices no tolerance policy.
"It's an aggressive move on our part. But the aggressiveness on our part can also be taken as 'wow, it's a bad system.' It's not a bad system," Miller said. "We are here to protect. That's hard for administration to do because no one wants to say ‘oh there is a black eye'...or have that kind of stigma on us.''
Miller says they would rather have a higher number of convicted cases than unreported ones.
"We are not sweeping anything under the rug. We are hitting this as a team, and the team comes from the Sheriff's office and the school administration," Miller said.
Bedford school spokesman Ryan Edwards says all teachers undergo background checks from child protective services and the FBI. But it is not enough.
"It changed dramatically in 2011 when we noticed that this was a growing problem, not only in our division, but in surrounding divisions and all over the country," Edwards said.
That is when Bedford implemented new, annual training requirements for all teachers.
"We really tried to tackle this problem head on. We developed a program in cooperation with the Internet Crimes Against Children task force which we implemented in all of our schools." Edwards said.
The training educates teachers about the warning signs of abuse, and enforcing their obligation to report their peers.
According to the program "Darkness to light," 80-percent of these cases happen when a teacher and child are alone.
"Since 2011, with both of those programs we have really enforced with our staff to never be alone with students in any situation," Edwards said.
Across the commonwealth many of these cases involve social media.
"With social media and texting that have grown in the past few years, it has become easier," Hostutler said. "Back in my day if you wanted to contact a student you had to call their landline…then you would get the parents."
Cellphones, computers and endless apps have changed that.
ICAC Lt. Michael Harmony says social media has changed crimes against children in general and has helped to over sexualize our society.
"Why do adults and children feel it is socially acceptable to have graphic conversations with each other? Some of these conversations, when you go in and start reading them, there are things that they say that are so horrific, I wouldn't dream of saying to my wife," Harmony said.
While ICAC tracks these crimes with technology, the real prevention starts at home.
According to Darkness to Light, it is stressed that parents must talk to their children about sexual situations and monitor their children's whereabouts and usage of computer and cell phones.
Signs of abuse often show up in children as a drastic change in behavior, good or bad.
The site also says children who are being abused will often begin using sexual language or displaying sexual behavior. Physical symptoms can be the easiest to spot, but are the most uncommon.