Teachers

MISHAWAKA - A Walt Disney Elementary School fifth-grade teacher accused of sending sexually explicit texts to a 12-year-old student at the school has formally been charged, according to documents filed Monday. St. Joseph County prosecutors charged 30-year-old Eric West with inappropriate communication with a child, a Class A misdemeanor. The girl told investigators West has been contacting the girl with texts and Facebook messages since she completed fifth grade in his class in 2011, according to the affidavit.

MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) - Facebook is a great way to keep up with friends and family. But should it be a way to keep in touch with your child's teacher? "Our advice to teachers, whether they are new teachers or seasoned teachers, is that using social media to communicate when there is a student-parent-teacher relationship is probably not a good idea," said Pat Kennedy, president of the Muncie Teachers Association. "It can be a very slippery slope. " Kennedy said that it's "too easy for things to be misrepresented.

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - Two national groups are supporting a discrimination lawsuit filed by a former Indiana parochial school teacher who claims she was fired for trying to get pregnant through in vitro fertilization. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the American Civil Liberties Union filed friends of the court briefs Monday in support of Emily Herx. Herx filed a federal lawsuit in April against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, claiming she was discriminated against for a disability when her teaching contract wasn't renewed.

Emails have surfaced from the South Bend School Board president calling for older teachers in the district to be "escorted out of the classroom," to make room for qualified younger teachers. Those comments have Roger Parent, the Board's president, dodging age discrimination claims. "I'm 73 years old. I don't go around discriminating against older people," Parent told WSBT News. But in two emails obtained by WSBT, including one dated, August 10 to Superintendent Carole Schmidt, Parent claims the corporation discriminated against YOUNGER qualified teachers during their last round of layoffs.

For the second time this week a local teacher has been arrested, accused of an inappropriate relationship with a minor. Starke County police tell us Todd Boldry was arrested this morning at the Knox Middle School where he teaches. The prosecutor filed child seduction and official misconduct charges against the former high school basketball coach. Boldry is being held on 100,000 bond.

New details emerged Wednesday in the case of a Warsaw middle school teacher charged with a felony for his alleged sexual relationship with a student.  Police say that relationship with a 14-year-old girl started at the end of last school year and continued throughout the summer.  Warsaw Schools Superintendent Dr. Craig Hintz said 26-year-old Tyler Baatz taught the girl 8 th grade English at Edgewood Middle School, which is how they...

Do employers have the right to look at an employee's private Facebook page? That's the center of a legal battle in a Cass County school district WSBT first told you about in March. On Wednesday the school superintendent spoke with WSBT about it for the first time. This has been a yearlong war of words. In April 2011, Kimberly Hester posted a picture on Facebook a parent found inappropriate. After it was reported to the school district, the teacher's aide said she was suspended after refusing to give administrators access to her Facebook account.

In weight training, spotting is about making sure you are there if someone needs help and then holding them accountable and making them work harder. That is especially true in the Speed and Weight Training program at Westside Middle School in Elkhart -- Except spotting also means just as much academically as it does physically. Stronger, faster and better. For 7th grader Jason Thrasher that applies after school during his workouts and in the classroom. "It is a really good goal for me," says Thrasher, "if I do well all day, I get to hang out with them.

KNOX - A Knox High School PE teacher and swim coach has been suspended with pay after he was arrested and charged with child seduction. Robert "Ryan" Corbin, 27, was arrested Sunday. He is the varsity boys and girls swim coach at the school. Knox city police say that last Wednesday a parent of a student made a complaint about improper internet contact between Corbin and their child. Corbin is currently being held in the Starke County Jail. 

A local teacher's aide who refused to let the school district she works for access her Facebook page says she's received an outpouring of support since we first reported her story Wednesday. Hester said Michigan State Representative Matt Lori (R - Constantine) contacted her Thursday morning. She added that he expressed interest in including her story in House Bill 5523. If passed, the legislation would make it illegal for employers to ask employees for social media login information.  Hester posted a picture of a co worker on her private Facebook page last April.