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There is no way to know whether more female teachers are having relationships with young male students or whether more are simply being reported. But as these cases make clear, inappropriate teacher-pupil relationships are not rare. According to Charol Shakeshaft, a professor of foundations, leadership and policy studies at Hofstra University, sexual misconduct is the top reason teaching licenses are revoked. "About 10% of kids report that sometime during K to 12, they have been the target of some form of educator sexual misconduct, and about 7% report physical sexual misconduct," she says. "About one-third of those cases are female teachers to male students."
A gangly, immature adolescent boy holds little appeal for the vast majority of women. But such qualities are precisely what these women find irresistible, says Dr. Gilbert Kliman, medical director of the Children's Psychological Health Center Inc. in San Francisco. Kliman has consulted on several cases involving female teachers and counselors who sexually assaulted young boys. "The fact that these boys were all at the dawn of their sexuality and were inexperienced seemed to heighten the interest of these women," he says. "They found the instructional quality of the relationship very appealing."
Most offenders share traits besides being accomplished, attractive and married. They tend to be socially naive and have a desperate need to be liked by their students, says University of Connecticut psychiatrist Catherine Lewis. That ultimately makes them unable to maintain proper teacher-student boundaries. And because they may lack the emotional maturity to negotiate age-appropriate relationships, being with a young boy feels less threatening to them. "They typically have had dysfunctional childhoods and poor relationships with their fathers as well as a pattern of abusive relationships," says Lewis. Whereas predatory male teachers often become involved with a series of young female students, female predators usually become fixated on one particular boy. "They are motivated by feelings they perceive as love and believe that the boy is special and not like other boys," says Lewis, who has studied dozens of cases. "It's a very idealized, romanticized and intense relationship, almost like a fantasy."
Letourneau fits that model. She has said she fell in love with Fualaau while working with him on a sixth-grade art project when he was 12 and claims that after a while a sexual relationship just seemed "natural." In a phone call recorded by police, Flannigan's student-lover asked the teacher why she had chosen to have sex with him. She reportedly answered, "I don't know why it happened. I don't know why I love you so much."
Shakeshaft believes much educator abuse could be prevented if schools did a better job of identifying predatory teachers. Instructors who lock classroom doors, repeatedly keep a student after school or contact him at home should be suspect. "There are a lot of signs no one recognizes because school officials have not been trained to identify them," she says. "If the teacher is highly motivated to seem cool, you should wonder why. A mature teacher doesn't focus on being cool or accepted. Her goal should be being able to reach the kids."