By
The Associated Press
WOODSTOCK, Ga. - Instead of answers, an investigation into allegations that one teacher had an affair with a student has produced a series of shocks for residents of this affluent Atlanta suburb.
Three young, male teachers have resigned and face charges. And on Friday, Principal J. Rick Ingram announced his resignation, saying the scandal has "brought shame, ridicule and embarrassment" to Woodstock High School.
"It's becoming harder and harder to entrust your child to a school," said Cis Smerek, whose 15-year-old daughter Andrea is a Woodstock sophomore. "You can't interview and pick each teacher individually, so you entrust your child to the school hoping that the teachers are OK. How are we supposed to do that now?"
The revelations have even set student against student.
"The week after it came out, there was a huge fight in the girls' locker room," said sophomore Amanda Johnson, 15. "Half the people said it was (the student's) fault and the other half were defending her. People were screaming at each other."
Brad Chapman, a 24-year-old history teacher and coach, resigned from Woodstock High after administrators found he had played hooky to take a weekend trip with a 15-year-old girl. He was charged with sexual assault on Feb. 23.
On March 13, coach Richard Paul Adams II, 29, was charged with attempted sexual assault for allegedly sending an explicit note propositioning a 16-year-old female student last fall.
Less than a week after that, another coach-teacher, 25-year-old Gene R. Groves, resigned amid similar accusations. Groves was charged Thursday with sexual battery and sexual assault against a person in his custody. Arrest warrants said he had sex with one 16-year-old student at his apartment and touched the breast of another 16-year-old student against her will.
None of the men or their lawyers have spoken to the media about the charges.
Cherokee County schools superintendent Frank Petruzielo defended the school system. He said all new teachers undergo thorough background checks and attend an orientation that includes the district's code of ethics. He also plans to start a mentoring program so older teachers can work with young teachers.
Smerek said that's not enough.
"There was a breakdown of some kind," she said. "The principal or the other teachers - somebody should have been on top of this."
Nan Stein, senior researcher at the Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College, said the school's administration dropped the ball.
"To do this kind of housecleaning at the end, it's just remiss," Stein said. "People need to be discussing these issues explicitly at hiring, telling new teachers what is acceptable and what's not, and then supervising them."
A disproportionate number of abuse charges are made against coaches, and drama, art, music and physical education teachers, Stein said. They are often among the most popular teachers and work one-to-one with students, giving them opportunities to develop and disguise close relationships.
Out of more than a dozen Woodstock students asked about the allegations, all said Chapman's close relationship with the young woman was obvious. Some said she often cut class to go into Chapman's room and talk with him while his students were left to entertain themselves.
"I once got up and stood on my chair for 15 minutes," said Brittany Percival, 15. "He didn't even notice."
Stein, a former teacher, said that indicates poor oversight by administrators at the 1,600-student school.
"First, if there were three teachers doing this kind of thing, that's a bad sign," she said. "And if a lot of students knew or had a hunch about it, you can be pretty sure that at least a couple of teachers did too."
Petruzielo disputed that assumption.
"If so many people knew what was going on why didn't they report it?" he said. "We have not been able to verify that anybody saw something and reported it in a timely fashion."
Johnson said she hoped all young, male teachers would not be judged unfairly because of what happened at Woodstock.
"That would be discrimination, because not all of them are retarded like these ones," she said.
