To express that there is a flaw in the Pinellas County school system is to understate a growing problem in our schools. I know there are excellent teachers in our school system, I'm privileged to have meet some. My children have been taught by them, I even dated one for a while. I'll also be the first in line to fight the good fight of increased teacher pay, additional school resources, and anything else that will help our schools become better. We do not reward the people doing this job in the manner that we should.

That said, what the heck is going on? We've heard of so many of these teacher/student sex scandals in the past year that we have become accustomed to it. Even to the point that we joke about it in social environments. The thing I find most unusual about this is that they are women. I'm not sure why that bothers me as much as it does, but it does. I suppose we are used to the term pedophile being applied to white males in their 3o's. The word conjures bad feelings and mental images. These mental images are so strong that we are hard pressed to use the word to describe what is going on in this case. Perhaps, we are even more reluctant to apply the term to a woman.

According to an article in the St.Pete Times By Saturday afternoon, detectives had tracked down Martin. She admitted to sending the pictures, police said. This makes, Christy Lynn Martin, 32 a pedophile. No matter how you feel about the term, it is still a term that applies here and in every other case involving a teacher and an under aged student, not limited to, but including those students directly under their care. (If you found sexual innuendo in that last statement, you are part of the problem as you have become callous.) I would even go so far to say she is worse than a pedophile as she actively sought a job that would put her in direct contact with our children and give her the most amount of trust our society can give an individual Christy Lynn Martin then used that trust and position in an attempt to confuse, corrupt, and emotionally damage one of our communities children. How is this any less despicable than Couey and what he did to Jessica Lunsford?

The only difference I see, is time.