Legislation would crack down on teacher-student sex

OLYMPIA — School employees who have sex with adult students could face prison time and mandatory sex-offender registration if state lawmakers pass a measure that would crack down on teacher-student relationships.

The proposed law came shortly after the state Court of Appeals ruled that a former Hoquiam High School choir teacher accused of having an intimate relationship with an 18-year-old choir member could not be charged with sexual misconduct because the state law criminalizing teacher-student sex is unconstitutionally vague.

Rep. Larry Haler, R-Richland, introduced a bill last week that would prohibit teachers, coaches and other employees at elementary, junior-high and high schools from having sex with students between the ages of 16 and 21, as long as the student is at least five years younger than the employee.

A similar bill also has been introduced in the Senate.

The current law makes it illegal for school employees to have sex with students younger than 18.

The age of consent for a sexual relationship in Washington state is 16 unless the person involved is mentally incapacitated or disabled.

Under the teachers' professional code of conduct, teachers who have sexual contact with students also face losing their teaching certificate.

House Majority Leader Rep. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, said she supports the bill.

"If you want to have a love fest, go somewhere else — don't do it in the schools," Kessler said. "The idea is just because you're 18 it's OK if teachers prey on young women who are going to school there — it's just insane."

The Washington Education Association also favors the legislation.

"If teachers have sexual conduct with students they should not be teaching," said Rich Wood, spokesman for the Washington Education Association, the state's largest teachers union. "We take a very firm stance on that."

Haler is rewriting minor portions of his bill and expects to refile it this week. If passed, a school-district employee who has sex with a student between the ages of 16 and 21 could be convicted of first-degree sexual misconduct, a felony, and face up to five years in prison and $10,000 fine.

In 2001, then-Gov. Gary Locke vetoed a bill that would have made it illegal for a school-district employee to have sex with a student as old as 21 because the law was too broad and could be used to prosecute a teenage employee.

Robert Martin Morgan Hill, the Olympia attorney who represented former Hoquiam High School teacher Matthew Hirschfelder before the appeals court, criticized lawmakers for wanting to criminalize what he calls consensual sex between adults.

Hirschfelder was charged with first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor in the 2006 case. He denied he had a sexual relationship with the 18-year-old student but argued that even if the allegations were true, no crime was committed.

He said the statute on sexual abuse of a minor does not define the term "minor," and that both common law and other Washington statutes define that term as a person under the age of 18.

Hill said he's particularly concerned about criminalizing the acts of janitors, cafeteria workers and other school-district employees not in a supervisory role. He said school districts, not state government, should be responsible for punishing employees who have sex with adult students.

"It's the 26-year-old janitor or the 26-year-old guy who flips burgers in the cafeteria," Hill said, adding it isn't "a stretch of the imagination" to "think that a 19-year-old girl is attracted to a guy at the cafeteria."

Grays Harbor County Prosecutor Stew Menefee said Friday that he has not appealed the court ruling in the Hoquiam case.

Jennifer Sullivan: 360-236-8267 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com

Chantal Anderson: 360-236-8266 or canderson@seattletimes.com