Armwood kids' pitch to crack down on teacher sexual misconduct passes House

The students of Armwood High School scored a victory today against sexual misconduct by teachers.

Their runner-up entry in Rep. Kevin Ambler's "Ought to Be a Law" bill-drafting competition turned into a bill sponsored by Rep. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, and it passed the House today on a 110-3 vote.

HB 659 reclassifies the felony degree of a sexual offense if the offense is committed by an authority figure at an educational institution against a student.

Stargel, who has five children, was a judge at the competition and said the issue is a big concern to her. 

"We need to send a strong signal to our educational people in authority over these kids that this is not acceptable and there are lines that you can't cross," Stargel said earlier this month when the bill passed committee.

The students' original pitch was to have mandatory minimums, but Stargel said that after talking with lawyers they went with reclassifing felonies.

"They had PowerPoints, they talked specifically about the one teacher ... who was too pretty to go to jail," Stargel said, referring to Debra Lafave. "The kids saw this as problem." 

Comments

[retiredteacher]

I think the legislature always goes overboard on this sort of thing. Increased penalties have not shown to deter behavior, i.e. capital punishment or the draconian drug laws. People will still kill or smoke pot because they believe they will not be caught.

[Pat Connolly]

Read the actual bill language.
It increases the felony level AND severity level each one level above the same crimes committed by an "average" citizen. I have no issue with that, people in education have been given a special trust, and with that special trust comes special responsibility.

But it is disingenuous for Rep. Stargel to imply that this legislation will solve situations such the Debbie LaFave case. That case was not prosecuted to its fullest extent because of concerns about the victim's willingness to testify.

Additionally, from a civil liberties standpoint, I AM concerned about the overly-broad scope of this legislation. Clearly we would all agree that anyone who abuses their special position of trust to take advantage of their children under their charge deserves a special place in Hell and enhanced penalties under the law. But this legislation goes much farther. These increased felony and severity levels apply "if the offense is committed by an authority figure of any educational institution against a student of any educational institution." Now look at how "authority figure", "educational institution", and "student" are defined in this legislation.
"(1) For purposes of this section, the term: (a) 'Authority figure' means a school officer, a teacher or other instructional person, an administrator or other school administrative person, a school volunteer, an educational support employee, or an education service provider who is employed by, under contract with, working at, or providing volunteer services to an educational institution. (b) 'Educational institution' means an entity providing instructional programs of study by means of regular classes, activities, or courses, including virtual courses, to students in early learning programs or in prekindergarten through grade 12. (c) 'Student' means any early learning or prekindergarten through grade 12 child who is enrolled in an educational institution."
Under this legislation, the increased levels would apply not only to a 35-year-old teacher having sexual relations with a 14-year-old student in her class, but also to an 18-year-old volunteer at a high school in Pinellas who engaged in a consensual, yet still illegal because of age, relationship with a 15-year-old student student at a high school in Hillsborough.

[Jeff Solochek]

Please, now. Let's keep our comments topical and not veer off into off-color statements attacking others.

(I am referring to comments unpublished from this blog post.)

Thanks.