SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Texas seems to be on pace to match or exceed last year’s record of 222 investigations into allegations of educators in inappropriate relationships with students.

The Texas Education Agency, which investigates educator misconduct, has opened 159 cases so far in the 2016-17 school year, including more than 80 in 2017 alone, the San Antonio Express-News reports.

TEA spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson broke the 2017 figures down by month in an email to the news site: 19 in January, 23 in February, and 39 new cases in March.

A detailed investigation by the Austin American-Statesman published in February looked at the growing epidemic of educators sexually abusing students and found that a total of 686 teachers lost their teaching licenses as a result of allegations of impropriety with a student between January 2010 and December 2016.

“The American-Statesman requested from the TEA the names of teachers who surrendered their teaching licenses or whose licenses were revoked after being investigated by the TEA for engaging in an improper relationship with a student,” according to the news site.

“The newspaper then analyzed thousands of records included in government databases and media reports to determine the names of teachers who were charged and ran criminal background checks on those teachers through the Texas Department of Public Safety.”

A total of 308 of the 686 teachers accused, or about 46 percent, were charged with a crime

http://eagnews.org/tx-investigates-159-educator-student-sex-cases-this-school-year-80-since-january/ …