A History of Sex With Students, Unchallenged Over the Years

The New York Times reports:

Many in this gray, insular city are at a loss to explain why Diane Cherchio West was allowed to continue working in the public school system for two decades after she was caught in 1980 kissing and groping a 13-year-old student at an eighth-grade dance.

Why, after her promotion to guidance counselor at Bayonne High School, no one alerted social services, school officials or the police when she became pregnant by an 11th grader she supervised, Steven West, and married him upon his graduation in 1985.

Or why, when that baby, Steven Jr., grew to be a teenager, no one balked as his 15-year-old friend moved in with Ms. West, who then seduced the friend with evening jaunts to sports bars and Scooby-Doo boxer shorts and used her school authority to rearrange his classes around their secret trysts.

It was not until 2001, when relatives of the boy, Christopher Castlegrande, filed a police report of statutory rape against Ms. West, that she left her $74,000-a-year job and lost her unfettered access to Bayonne High School’s students.

Great moments in public education.