Former Kentlake High School math teacher Barbara Jeanne Anderson was sentenced to eight months in jail for first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor, according to King County Prosecutor’s Office spokesman Dan Donahoe.
Anderson pleaded guilty July 29 to the charge which stemmed from a relationship she had with a 17-year-old male student. She struck a plea agreement with the King County Prosecutor’s Office in late July and was sentenced Friday, Sept. 9.
She was booked into the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent after entering her plea July 29 and will receive credit for time served.
King County prosecutors filed the charge against Anderson on April 4 after it was discovered in March that the 37-year-old teacher had an inappropriate relationship with one of her male students.
Anderson pleaded not guilty to the charge in April.
The relationship came to light, according to charging documents provided by the Prosecutor’s Office, after the boy’s mother became suspicious after a meeting in February about his behavior at school.
Anderson was present during a meeting with an assistant principal and the boy’s parents. The student’s mother suggested taking away her son’s text messaging ability but Anderson suggested against that because “it was his lifeline,” charging papers stated.
Following this meeting the boy’s mother logged onto the family’s cellphone account and found almost 800 text messages back and forth between her son and Anderson during a three-week period.
Later, Anderson tearfully pleaded with an assistant principal about a suspension the boy received, claiming the other person involved started the altercation that led to the student being disciplined, which caused the administrator to suspect the teacher was communicating with her student because there was no other way she would have known about the incident.
On Feb. 11, Anderson was told to discontinue contacting the boy both verbally or in writing by the assistant principal. The text messages continued.
Anderson and the boy, whom she first met when he was a sophomore in one of her classes, connected through a social networking site and through their communication arranged meetings.
During one of those meetings, Anderson talked about how worried she was about being caught, the charging papers stated, and “how it would ruin her life.”
Eventually, the relationship evolved into one that involved sexual contact between Anderson and the boy.
In March, a family member told the boy’s mother that he was having a sexual relationship with Anderson, at which point the mother went to school administrators to report it.
Anderson was hired by the Kent School District in 2008, according to documents on the district’s Board of Directors website, and was given a three-year contract which expired at the end of the 2010-2011 school year.
Anderson was fired by the school district on July 29 because of her guilty plea, said district spokesman Chris Loftis. Anderson had been on paid administrative leave since officials found out about the incident.
The statute used in this case is written to prohibit teachers (or other school employees) from having sexual intercourse with students who are 16 or 17 years old, when the employee is at least five years older than the student.
The age of consent for a sexual relationship is 16 in Washington state.
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