Louisiana No. 3 for inappropriate teacher-student relationships

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Louisiana has the third highest rate in the United States of school employees accused or convicted of inappropriate relationships with students, according to data compiled by a former top official in the U.S. Education Department. In 2014, 23 cases were reported in Louisiana, placing the state behind only Alabama and Kentucky on a per-capita basis.

The incidents run the gamut. Some school workers make lewd comments or grope students. Some send obscene electronic messages or pictures. At the most extreme, school employees have sex with students.

That was the case, police say, with two Destrehan High female teachers who are accused of having group sex with a 16-year-old male student. The story made international headlines and sparked a debate on whether society judges teacher-student relationships with a double standard, depending on the gender of the people involved.

Of the 23 cases reported in Louisiana last year, 11 were in the New Orleans or Baton Rouge areas, including two involving the Destrehan High teachers, according Abbott's data. The average age of the student involved was 15, Abbott said.

The 23 Louisiana cases equate to one for every 202,160 residents of the state. Still, Abbott says the number is indicative of an alarming trend: The number of reported sexual incidents involving school employees and students who use social media to facilitate the contact.

In most of the 2014 cases around the country, and specifically in Louisiana, Abbott said the use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Kik, and the use of text messages, play an integral role. He says schools must establish strong policies and rules against employees communicating directly with individual students via social media and text messages.

Louisiana also tracked higher than the national average in the percent of incidents that involved women school employees, he said. In Louisiana, 41 percent of the 23 cases involved women, compared to 33 percent nationally, his data indicated. The numbers indicate that women were more likely than men to use social media in communicating with students, Abbott said.

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