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| Teacher arranged prison pen pal for student |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 12/06/2004 |
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A Washington high school teacher has been placed on administrative leave after being accused of setting up a pen-pal relationship between a female student and a 20-year-old man serving prison time for the stabbing death of a prostitute. Dave Reynolds, a history teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School, was placed on paid leave Nov. 23 and will not return until the Federal Way Public Schools' human resources department concludes its investigation, said Diane Turner, a spokeswoman for the district in this south Seattle suburb. The mother of the 15-year-old female student told school officials she had found two letters that the inmate, Michael Koehler - a former student of Reynolds' - had sent her daughter. In one letter, Koehler spoke of love and marriage while giving a gang nickname to the girl. In another, he wrote about sexual fantasies involving her, The News Tribune of Tacoma reported. "I am scared for my daughter for what he has said and wrote to her. Please help me stop this," the mother said in a court filing seeking a no-contact order against Koehler, an inmate at the Washington State Reformatory at Monroe, northeast of Seattle. In a statement released last Tuesday afternoon, state Corrections Department spokeswoman Mary Christensen said the prison immediately stopped Koehler's mail from being sent to the student as soon as officials learned that the student's mother objected. Christensen also said Koehler was served with a no-contact order and was told he would be disciplined if he kept sending mail to the girl. It was not immediately known exactly how and when the pen-pal program began and how many Federal Way students took part. Turner said the school district is trying to find out, and Christensen said the prison would grant any parents' requests that correspondence with inmates end. |
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