OK, how many parents out there would think it odd that their child was exchanging personal e-mails with a teacher?
Not this parent, whose daughter was exchanging e-mails with Robert Watson, who was arrested Wednesday and charged with six counts of statutory sex offense:
Pam Marty… said that her daughter had exchanged conversational e-mails with Watson over the summer. She didn’t see anything inappropriate, but in retrospect such communications should have raised a red flag. “I just thought that was unusual for a teacher,” she said. “And now that this has happened, it really makes you think you need to keep an eye on the Internet.”
No kidding:
According to an application filed last week for a warrant to search Watson’s home at 2543 Brook Stone Drive in Clemmons, two students told a sheriff’s detective that Watson used e-mail to ask them about sexual matters.
A former student, now in the ninth grade, told Detective Karen Boyd that Watson had invited him and any friends to come by his classroom if they ever wanted to masturbate between classes, according to a search warrant.
Now WSFCS board chairman Donny Lambeth is ready to get involved, a few months too late:
Lambeth said that he has asked school Superintendent Don Martin to call a special meeting of the school board to deal with the Watson case. He said he wants the school system’s administration to look back at how they could have handled the case better.
This seems to be a theme today: School systems looking back to see how they could’ve done things better. By the same token, let’s hope more than one parent is looking back, too.
