What can be done about this epidemic going on in some public schools? According to an Apr. 29, 2008, WorldNetDaily article headlined, "Schoolteacher in heat? Woman arrested thrice: Despite 2 previous cases against her, police say she has sex with boy again," Stephanie Ragusa, 29, of Tampa, a former Florida teacher already arrested twice for allegedly having sex with two of her students has reportedly scored a hat trick, after police say she again had sex with a previous victim. She was taken into custody shortly after Hillsborough County detectives saw her exiting the home of the 16-year-old boy. It's Ragusa's third arrest since last month on similar sex charges. Her arrest affidavit indicates she drove to the boy's home in her boyfriend's pickup, saying she wanted to discuss her criminal case, but she and the teen ended up having sex. Sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway said deputies in the neighborhood stumbled onto the arrest when they saw Ragusa leave the home. The arrest report says Ragusa has written the boy love letters and given him presents, as well as a copy of her handwritten will. She was charged with two counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor, as police placed into evidence cell-phone video footage. Ragusa, who taught special education at Tampa's Davidsen Middle School and math at Martinez Middle School in Lutz, FL, previously was charged with having sex with two male students. Those allegations led to numerous counts of lewd or lascivious battery and unlawful sexual activity with a minor. While one of the teens had been her student in class, Ragusa met the other when he was 14. He had been assigned to push her wheelchair around campus after she had broken her foot. Detectives say Ragusa told the boy she could help him overcome his shyness, so she brought him to her apartment for three sexual encounters between October 2006 and May 2007. Officials say that during this time, she became intimate with the other boy, and had sex with him more than 20 times between February 2007 and March 2008, including once at her home when she provided the boy a contraceptive. The teacher had been free on $22,500 bail until her third arrest. Ragusa has been suspended without pay from the Hillsborough School District, and her annual contract won't be renewed at the end of the schoolyear next month. Hillsborough County has been a hotbed of sexual activity for teachers and students in recent years. Last year, former Wharton High School teacher and basketball coach Jaymee Wallace got three years in prison and three years probation after pleading guilty to having sex more than 50 times with a 15-year-old girl. And Debra LaFave, a former Greco Middle School teacher, received no jail time despite having sex with her 14-year-old male student in a classroom and her home. She received three years of house arrest and seven years of probation. The article concluded with a list of 144 female teachers and other school personnel, drawn from news reports across the nation, who have been convicted, indicted, charged, arrested, or otherwise accused of sexual activities with students over the last several years. Certainly the vast majority of teachers and schools would abhor this kind of behavior, and it appears that in most instances the school districts have acted responsibly, but I have to ask if there is something about the way our modern educational system is set up that draws this sort of predator. And with this epidemic going on, are schools really safe havens for children? Anti-homeschooling zealots often claim that homeschooling is just a way for parents to hide abuse, but it seems to me just the opposite is really true.

     I hate to keep harping on this subject but...: I do not hate public schools and school teachers, and the purpose of this newsletter is not just to bash them. However, nearly every week stories like this one appear. On Fri., May. 2, 2008, the Philadelphia Daily News reported that Michelle Zulkowsky, 28, a teacher's aide with the North Penn School District, was arrested and charged with corruption of minors and endangering the welfare of children, each crime a misdemeanor (years ago, a person would be put to death for such behavior). She is free after posting $25,000 bail. Her preliminary hearing was scheduled for May 8. The district hired Zulkowsky in January 2007 as an assistant for the English as a Second Language program, the district said. She told a 16-year-old student in the English as a Second Language program she wanted to have sex with him this summer, according to the affidavit of probable cause. One time, according to the affidavit which identifies the 10th-grader only as "J.F.", Zulkowsky placed "her hand on his stomach and then J.F. put her hand on his crotch over his clothing. She moved her hand away, but she continued to rub the outside of his leg." She resigned April 18 from North Penn School District, one day after Towamencin Township Police interviewed her at the high school, the school district said in a statement. The school district is cooperating with police and the D.A.'s office regarding Zulkowsky, whom the district statement only identified as "the former employee." Zulkowsky began to supervise J.F. in September, the document said, and by January, "she told him that she loved him and that she wanted to be with him." The teacher's aide gave J.F. photos of herself, one was labeled in Spanish and read "my heart and very much love . . . ," according to the court documents. Zulkowsky also wrote poems for the student, including one about "secret love" that she gave him on Valentine's Day. She also gave J.F. CDs by Spanish musicians. The teacher's aide feared time with J.F. would get her arrested. It did. Zulkowsky indicated she "did not have any control over her feelings," the affidavit read. As my first grade teacher would say, "Poppycock, balderdash, and fiddlesticks." Everyone has control, if he or she will just exercise it. Things like this were practically unknown when I went to school in the 1960s. Why do they seem so much more common today? And what can be done to protect children in the face of these kinds of things? That is one of the reasons that so many of us have chosen to homeschool.