Are More Female Teachers Having Sex With Their Teenage Students?

When Mary Kay Letourneau was imprisoned for having sex with her 13-year-old male student in 1998, the case captured national attention and outrage.

By the time she was released in 2004, she was less of a novelty: Female teacher-student sex offenses were being covered regularly by the media. 

Just this week, a local story broke that told the tale of Centennial High School teacher Summer Michelle Hansen, 31, who was arrested by officers from the Corona Police Department. She was jailed and booked on suspicion of having sex with several students. Click here for more on this breaking local story.

So are more female teachers really having sex with their teenage students, or has there simply been an increase in reports on the issue?

Terri Miller, president of Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation (SESAME) in Nevada, said it’s impossible to tell because the U.S. Department of Education does not require any kind of data collection on the issue from states.

“We do believe it is a growing trend, but we really don’t have current data on educator sexual misconduct in general,” she said.

But there’s no consensus. As Bonny Forest, a psychologist and attorney told Bill O’Reilly, “I think this is an epidemic. I don’t think it’s on the rise, and I don’t think females committing this kind of abuse is on the rise. I just think we’re willing to talk about it more.”

Experts agree social media plays a role in the increased prominence of these stories: whether it’s by making teacher-student relationships more informal, or by leaving a digital trail when teachers and students interact, or in making stories about teacher-student relationships (particularly those involving female teachers) go viral.

The Associated Press conducted an unprecedented nationwide investigation on the issue between 2001 to 2005, in which it found 2,500 incidents of sexual misconduct by teachers of both genders were reported to authorities.

According to a 2004 U.S. Department of Education report, about 4.5 million public school students, or 1 in 10 students, said they had experienced some form of inappropriate sexual attention from teachers or other school employees sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade. About 43 percent of those students reported misconduct by female offenders.