Math Teacher Stephanie Ragusa Arrested for Having Sex with Student

Stephanie Ragusa, a 7th grade math teacher at Martinez Middle School in Tampa, Florida, was arrested Thursday, March 13, but only after authorities felt they had enough information to charge the 28-year-old with five counts of lewd and lascivious battery. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office stated that Ragusa was never the teacher of the 14-year-old student she is accused of having sex with, but that he was a student at Davidson Middle School when she taught there during the 2006-2007 school year.

The arrest was made after school officials received a tip, then alerted the police. The police then interviewed the student, who provided them with the information used to make the arrest.

Ragusa's case seems to be just one more in a long line of recent cases of female teachers having sex with their underage students. Many believe that it could simply be media awareness or perhaps some sort of social tipping point. It probably is not anywhere near that simplistic, although both arguments have merit. David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, states (in an interview in the New York Times): "Most of what we are seeing is a greater level of sensitization, awareness and willingness to report and prosecute. There has also been a feminization of law enforcement. One of the consequences of that was to challenge a longstanding reluctance to prosecute crimes that involve adult women and what look like willing teenage boys."

But that does not mean female teachers are the only predators in schools today. In Poinciano, Florida, Friday, March 7, William Musto, a 44-year-old history teacher at Discovery Intermediate School, made an inappropriate remark about a 13-year-old student's body (he said she had "nice, perky ***s") in front of his class. He has been placed on non-teaching duties while the Osceola County Sheriff's Office investigates.

Lisa W. Foderaro of the New York Times reports that two separate studies conducted in 1993 and 2000 showed consistent abuse among both boys and girls (10%).